If you own a vehicle with an electronic parking brake, make sure you actuate it from time to time. Otherwise, you may be in for an expensive surprise when it comes time to replace the rear brake pads. A $200 job could easily turn into greater than $1000 due to the parking brake mechanism becoming seized. Actually, the parking brake should be used every time the car is parked. Frozen parking brakes are due to disuse and just about nothing else. The transmission park position should never be trusted to hold the vehicle. Personally, I know of two instances of failure of the park position in the transmission to hold the vehicle. One resulted in a fatality and another in an injury. The parking brake is there for a reason. Use it and be safe.
Archive for the ‘Volkswagen’ Category
Electronic Parking Brakes
Thursday, January 12th, 2012Oil Price Illusion
Monday, August 29th, 2011The price of finished oil products continues to climb. Our business and others like us are staring down the barrel of our fourth price increase this year of 8%, 8%, 10%, and now 6%. Those increases are just for the base stock. The additive package that goes into that quart of oil that goes into your car has increased in price 3 times so far in 2011 with another round on the way. Even though we are seeing oil getting cheaper on the commodities market, that situation is not passing through to the end users, you and me, and it won’t anytime soon. We are on our way to continuous price increases in motor oil.
Controlling vehicle operating costs is on everyone’s mind, and one of the best ways to do that is to use oil that meets the specifications of the manufacturer of your car, and use the oil change intervals that are recommended. More is not better. Changing oil more frequently than recommended is a waste of money and resources. It increases the volume of waste entering the environment with no positive effect on vehicle performance, longevity or costs. Recommended service intervals include a time and mileage factor, whichever is first, and it is important not to exceed those criteria. These intervals only work with oil that is recommended by the manufacturer. The specifications, which are in your owner’s manual, must also be printed on the oil bottle. If they are not printed on the oil bottle, that oil is not approved for use in your vehicle no matter what the manufacturer of that oil claims. Also, do not use additives. Oil companies pay thousands of dollars to car manufacturers to have their oil approved for just one application and the car maker engages in exhaustive testing to ensure that their engines meet strict emissions and warranty requirements while maximizing longevity. Additives can cause harm to catalytic converters, oxygen sensors, particulate filters, piston rings and camshafts. The same goes for a low quality oil or the wrong oil. It is almost without exception that when we replace a catalytic converter on a VW product, we discover the owner had been using the wrong oil.
Again, more is not better. Frequent changes with a cheap oil will not protect the aforementioned components. In fact using this strategy will do more harm than leaving a high quality oil in too long. Be an informed consumer and save money in the process. Make sure your oil change establishment is using the correct oil in your car. Ask to see the label to make sure, or go online and check the oil company’s website for a list of approvals for that oil. You’ll be rewarded with many thousands of miles of trouble free operation.
Ethanol and you
Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011As the government continues to meddle in the free market, unintended consequences pop up all over the place. Now we have the EPA, after much lobbying from big agriculture, approving the use of E15, which is a blend of 15% ethanol to gas by volume. So what is the problem? Well, one of the problems is that as we take corn out of production to make fuel, we make the products that depend on corn more expensive and don’t make a dent in our energy dependence. Food costs more because of all of the products derived from corn. Think cereal, cooking oil, margarine, baked goods, etc. Meat costs more because it costs more to feed cattle, chickens, and hogs. Driving costs more because your car doesn’t have the fuel economy it had on straight gasoline. The other problem is the effects ethanol has on power equipment from snow mobiles to lawn mowers to older vehicles and motorcycles. Having raced cars on methanol, I know how injurious the stuff is to plastic and alloy, meaning aluminum, parts. Ethanol is derived primarily from corn and methanol is derived from wood, but their properties are very similar. Ethanol reduces fuel economy because it doesn’t have the heat value of gasoline. Our race cars had to flow 2.5 times as much methanol as gasoline to create maximum power. The reason we used it is that in those concentrations it created 10% more power than gasoline and it ran cooler. We have an industry that is being subsidized by government, and one that couldn’t stand on its own, being forced down our throats by an organization whose regulators were not elected and seems to be accountable to no one. What we are doing is cost shifting, transferring wealth if you will. Anyone who owns a vehicle or power equipment not designed to handle higher concentrations of ethanol is going to be a big loser. The free market may come up with solutions to the problem of operating older equipment on this stuff, but at the expense of reliability and higher cost of ownership. Let’s suppose the free market doesn’t come up with a solution. I believe the unstated objective of the powers that be is to limit our choices to owning anything “green”. This is not the road to energy independence. If we converted all of the corn produced in the U.S. on an annual basis to ethanol production, we still would need to import oil. Policy makers are not interested in you getting the most bang for your buck by driving your car until the wheels fall off. The economy only expands because of debt creation and that means they want you to buy stuff, which puts you in debt. It is time for our elected officials to stand up and take responsibility for decisions affecting our pocket books via the EPA and other regulatory bodies. I’ll end this with a thought provoking statement; there are more regulators in the U.S. than there are businesses. Food for thought.
How Often do I Change Oil? Let’s put this debate to rest….
Thursday, January 20th, 2011How often oil should be changed is the subject of much debate, but there really is no mystery to this most common of maintenance services. Just turn a deaf ear to the marketing hype and follow the manufacturer’s recommendations, which will save a lot of time and money. Beyond saving time and money there is a huge benefit to the engine, catalytic converter, oxygen sensors and the environment. There is a caveat here, however. It only works with motor oil that meets or exceeds the manufacturer’s specification which is, surprise, also found in the owner’s manual. That specification found in the owner’s manual must appear on the bottle of oil somewhere or it is not an approved oil. this may come as quite a shock to some people, but no one brand of oil can cover all makes and models of vehicles. I often here that this person uses only brand X or this person only uses brand Y. However, if your goal is to maximize the service life of the vehicle and reduce cost per mile to the minimum, this is head in the sand thinking. For example, Volkswagen’s latest specification is VW 504/507 in a 5W30 weight, which covers most of its fleet at this writing. The weight of the oil is less important than that approval rating. This oil is not approved for use in an Asian vehicle such as an Acura that requires 5W30 and vice versa. Using an Acura approved oil in a VW will kill the catalytic converter prematurely, can cause deposits and can cause engine damage because it is not as “thick” as the VW approved oil. What? Isn’t a 5W30 the same across all brands? No. The Europeans have the toughest motor oil standards on the planet. That is why we put our customers on a 12 months/10,000 mile oil change interval, which is what VW recommends. The time is as important as the mileage. If the car isn’t driven 10,000 miles in a year, the oil should be changed because the additive package gets used up. Short distance driving is a killer for motor oil. The German makes (VW/Audi, BMW, and Mercedes) all have no problems with extended change intervals as long as approved oil is used.The slow death from the wrong oil that engines and emissions control devices suffer is insidious. It is like someone who only eats cheeseburgers his whole life. He looks fine until the moment he drops dead. When we replace catalytic converters, we invariably find that the owner was not using an approved oil.The same strategy can be followed with no problems for the Asian and Domestic makes. The secret is using the oil approved by the manufacturer. If the manual says you can go 12mos/7500 miles with the specified oil, then it is okay to do that with one exception. The exception is owners who drive extremely short distances. One way to tell is to examine the oil cap for deposits. If the approved oil is used and deposits are in evidence, then the change interval needs to be shortened. This analysis doesn’t work if the approved oil is not being used. Again, the car maker’s oil specs will appear on the oil bottle. If it is not there, it is not approved. Period. If you are in doubt, ask the shop that changes your oil to show you the bottle or the approval rating label if they keep their oil in bulk form. Surprisingly, many shops including dealerships are unaware of the long term damage (80,000 miles and above) caused by using the wrong oil. Car makers are being pressured more and more by the federal government to increase fuel economy and provide super warranties such as covering catalytic converters for 150,000 miles. The day will come, and it is not far off, when they will deny warranty service because their recommendations haven’t been followed. They know that super warranties will cost them big bucks if they don’t raise their standards for oil quality.There are really only two conditions that determine when oil should be changed – how long the engine is on after the key is turned, and the quality of the oil. High quality oils are better for the engine, save time and money, and reduce the volume in the waste stream helping to save the environment.
Look Out! A Pothole!
Tuesday, October 5th, 2010How to Eliminate or Minimize the Damage
Sooner or later everybody hits one of these things. In the majority of cases even a deep pothole can be a non event. The natural reaction when someone sees one of these monsters is to hit the brakes, which is okay up to a point. The damage occurs because the driver doesn’t release the brake before hitting the pothole. When the wheel enters the hole with the brakes applied it stops rolling because it is now suspended in air. Now the stationary wheel slams into the sharp edge on the other side of the hole bending the wheel, damaging the tire, or both. The proper technique is to brake to maximum before the hole reducing speed as much as possible and then release the brake at the last instant so the wheel can roll through it. It may sound bad when it hits, but most of the time there is no damage. You will react correctly the next time you are confronted with Pennsylvania’s state treasure if you think through this technique and practice on some small holes.