Stadium Automotive

WINTER DRIVING: If you’re heading over the mountains or into snow area, be ready for the worst. Know your route, keep to major highways. They are plowed and sanded. If you do have a problem, help would be close. Be well rested. Let someone know where you are going and when you’re getting back if you’re planning to go off the beaten path in snowy conditions Always have traction tires or chains. Keep your fuel tank close to full, Carry warm clothes and blanket and some food and water, more if you going off the beaten path. Kitty liter is good to have in the trunk if you should get stuck, pour it on front of the slipping tire to get traction. If you get stuck away from cars and people, stay with your car. It is easier to find, water proof, windproof and can be started for heat. Winter preparations for your vehicle.. 1. Coolant check, 50-50 mixture of antifreeze/water. That will bring it down to -34. 2. Battery check. A battery receives its electric energy from chemical reaction ... read more

One of the questions that is always going through my mind is what is the right amount in vehicle maintenance. Too much and you’re wasting money, not enough the vehicle life and dependability of you vehicle flies out the window. The owner’s manual has great information on what to do and when. But and this is a big but, is the recommendations that the manufactures recommends doing enough to keep the vehicle lasting a long life. On one end of the spectrum is the “up sell” of fluid changes (the oil or fluid wiped on a white rag showing how dirty it is, shocks that are seeping slightly or the air filter that is somewhat dirty. (Remember, a slightly dirty air filter will NOT affect your fuel mileage, advanced electronics engine controls compensate for this on vehicles 95 and newer. A real plugged air filter should be replaced because it will cut engine power) The other end of the spectrum is oil services every 18,000 miles, no recommendation of transmission services, never having to chang ... read more

We had an older nice German vehicle that was towed in because of an engine fire this month. The repair bill was well over $2000 to replace the composites that were burned. The sad news was this was so preventable. The valve cover gasket (the gasket on the very top of the engine) was leaking oil. The owner was aware that something was amiss because of a strange odor that was being given off from under the engine compartment. A burning smell, even after the vehicle was shut off. As time progressed, this smell got more and more pungent. The intention was to have this checked out but wasn’t checked and repaired until disaster set in. The pools of oil, heated by the exhaust manifold caught fire. The good news, it was a small fire and didn’t do much damage as fires go. The even better news, no one was injured. Your vehicle is a very complicated piece of machinery, incredible amounts of components all working together to provide you with a safe and comfortable ride with impeccable dependa ... read more

If you have read my column much, you know that I love gadgets. I have acquired a 2014 vehicle that has one of the newest gadgets to enter the car market. I believe this forward looking duel camera system will be standard in most vehicles in the future. This system has a camera on each side of the rear view mirror that scans the road ahead for hazards, vehicles and reads the painted lines on the In day to day use, I have really enjoyed this. The chime goes off when I get close or over a painted line without using my turn signal is nice. I do need to be reminded to always use my turn signal and that I’m getting close to the painted line on the side of the road. The feature that I really like is the chime and message on the info panel that says, “Car in front has moved”. Yes, at times at a red light, I’m not paying attention that the traffic is moving and I need to accelerate.The camera’s information is feed into a computer and the outputs include many. This system has the ability to ch ... read more

In the 1950’s and 60’s, tune-ups were done every 5000-7000 miles, coolant was flushed every fall and oil changes every 2000, with engines reaching 100,000 miles at most. With today’s more precisely built engines, it’s not unusual for one to reach 300,000 miles with regular maintenance. But what kind of maintenance should modern cars have, and how does one maintain a vehicle for the fewest dollars per mile to drive it? For starters, how often should oil services be preformed? Some manufacturers are recommending up to 18, 000 miles on oil changes, other sources say every 3 months, or every 3000 miles. Some manufactures are recommending that their transmission never needs service. There are documented cases with Japanese and European car engines slugging up and needing major repair after fewer than 50,000 miles, even though oil service were done in the prescribed factory times. With lifetime transmission fluid, an instructor who worked for a major European dealership found that tra ... read more

One of the daily challenges that we have at our shops is the diagnosis and repair of intermittent problems – things like noises, poor running, no start conditions, vibrations that don’t happen all the time. In any kind of problem solving in any kind of profession, there are four logical steps to problem solving. The first is to experience the problem. From this you can move to step two which is to theorize what the problem is. Moving to step three, you test, inspect, diagnose to prove or disprove your theory. The forth and most important of the steps is you repair or replace the part in question to make sure your theory is correct. If that fixes the problem; the proof in the pudding, so to speak. If the problem is not there all the time, you can lose two to three of these steps. This is where the challenge exists. We have had vehicles that will crank over but won’t start. One of the first steps is to read the onboard ECU (electronic control unit) to see if any fault codes are pre ... read more