Archive for the ‘Maintenance’ Category

Oil Price Illusion

Monday, August 29th, 2011

The 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.

Posted in Audi, Maintenance, Money Saving Tips, Volkswagen | No Comments »

Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

Sunday, August 14th, 2011

This is not going to be a treatise on the book written by Charles MacKay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds about the tulip bulb mania in Holland in the 1600’s, but it does have a parallel in auto repair in that crowd behavior is similar no matter what the topic. What I am referring to is maintenance.

In order for any machine to work well and be reliable, it needs regular maintenance. This is why companies are such sticklers about maintaining their equipment and machinery. A machine that breaks down and stops production costs them big money.  However, the average motorist pays little attention to this cost saving strategy employed by businesses. Many defer maintenance because they “don’t have the money right now”. This is delusional thinking. Money is saved over the long term by putting the car on a regular maintenance plan and taking care of needed repairs before they lead to bigger problems. Believe it or not this concept is kind of abstract.

A car is an integral part of almost everyone’s life because we don’t have very good public transportation in the U.S. Without a car we don’t get to work, or the grocery store, or engage in our favorite forms of entertainment. Yet, for some perverse reason, we believe this complex machine will run forever with no maintenance. Then the day of reckoning arrives and now the car is a “piece of junk and I am getting rid of it” because it needs a couple of thousand dollars in repairs and deferred maintenance. Deferring maintenance and repairs almost always leads to higher cost of operation over the long term. The long term doesn’t just involve the car, but also a number of other factors. What is the cost of being late for work, or worse yet not getting to work, angering your boss and co-workers? What is the cost of being late for your kid’s soccer event or school play or missing them altogether? What is the cost of having the car break down before or on that vacation you have been looking forward to for months?

Our attitude toward maintenance is driven by perceived risk. Some people will not fly in an airplane, which is statistically much safer than driving, but they perceive that the risk is greater in an airplane when reality states otherwise. Humans are not driven by logic. Logic says to maintain the machine, but our hearts want that new iPad. So we rationalize that the machine will just keep running. We perceive its possibility of failure as low. Just as illogically, we decide we aren’t going to put any more money in this “piece of junk”, but will go out and buy another used car, on which the previous owner deferred maintenance. After all, who would meticulously maintain a car and then sell it? That’s lunacy. So we buy somebody else’s problem child, have no idea how the car was used, and spend thousands of dollars fixing it. Is this rational behavior? After we get caught in this trap, we rationalize that we were tired of the old bucket of bolts anyway. As crazy as it sounds, I’ve observed this behavior over and over in my 40 years in the auto repair business. I’ve recommended to folks that they get rid of a car because I know the thing is just going to be a money pit. Some cars are like that. Yet, they will hang on even when I show them the numbers going forward. On the flip side, I have seen really good cars with deferred maintenance issues, but the owner would rather sell it and get something else in the belief that it will be cheaper, only to find himself caught in the same maintenance and repair issues as the old car. Sometimes worse.

Bottom line. Get an honest opinion about the vehicle you now have and make an objective evaluation about the maintenance plan or lack thereof that you have been doing. If your car is going to require a fair amount of money to make it reliable and increase its longevity, compare that to the purchase price of another car plus the unknowns of deferred maintenance or structural issues. If your car is paid off, the cost of maintenance and repairs is like buying a used car, but at a steep discount. You don’t have the problem of unknowns with your own car. Happy Motoring!

Posted in Maintenance, Money Saving Tips, Safety, Uncategorized | No Comments »

How to Save Money on Car Repairs

Wednesday, July 20th, 2011

There is a an easy way to save money on auto repair and here it is – pick a shop you trust and do all of your business there. Why not shop around? There are a number of reasons why shopping around costs more money in the long run. For one thing your time has value. Not only does it take time to shop around, but the time spent trying to resolve a problem with a repair can be enormous and cause a lot of anger. Think about that. The last shop to touch the vehicle is suspect in anything that goes wrong with it. Say you had a water pump replaced at shop A, an oil change done at shop B, and a check engine light repaired at shop C, all because you determined who was cheapest for those repairs. And then a coolant leak developed a couple of days after the last repair. Guess who is the suspect? Shop C was the last guy to touch the vehicle. Now he has to prove that he didn’t cause the problem, so he sends you back to where the water pump was replaced at shop A. Their contention is that shop B nicked a hose while changing the oil.  Nobody wants to take ownership of the problem and meanwhile your pot is starting to boil. This problem may never get resolved. If you do all of your repairs at one shop, the likelihood that they will bend over backwards to keep you as a customer is high. I have been in this business for 40 years and have repaired issues for good customers that were either just over the warranty period or even for things I had nothing to do with. Many good shops out there do the same for their customers.  I am not advocating having blind faith in a shop, but the shop should be your trusted advisor concerning car repairs. By all means, ask questions because it is your right to know, but if you are feeling like your business is being taken for granted, find another shop. The best way to do that is to get a referral from someone who is happy with the shop they are using. I have one plumber, one electrician, one landscaper, and one machine shop, etc.  I’ll do business with those folks until they give me a reason not to. Sometimes the job is more than they can handle and that is fine, but then I ask for a referral. If they are good people, I know they will refer me to good people. If they refer me to a knucklehead, their own reputation is on the line. So, if you want to save money on car repairs, pick a shop, any shop, one you can trust and who has your best interest at heart. Happy Motoring!

Posted in Driving Tips, Maintenance, Money Saving Tips, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Ethanol and you

Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011

As 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.

Posted in Audi, Industry News, Maintenance, Money Saving Tips, Volkswagen | 1 Comment »

How Often do I Change Oil? Let’s put this debate to rest….

Thursday, January 20th, 2011

How 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.

Posted in Audi, Maintenance, Money Saving Tips, Volkswagen | No Comments »

Look Out! A Pothole!

Tuesday, October 5th, 2010

How 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.

Posted in Audi, Maintenance, Money Saving Tips, Uncategorized, Volkswagen | No Comments »

Fluid Leaks

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

Should you fix that minor oil seepage coming from the valve cover? If you spend a lot of time on the road, yes. If you use the car locally, maybe you can live with it. I make that statement at the risk of offending environmentalists, but the realities are that use is a definite consideration. I always query the customer about who the primary driver is and how the car is used before recommending any service procedure. If your teenager is using the vehicle around town or you are a retiree who only drives a couple of miles to the grocery every other day, it probably makes sense to spend the money on something of higher priority, like food and shelter. An auto repair shop should be finding, noting, and prioritizing every current and potential problem with the vehicle by doing an inspection whenever it is in for service. Knowing all the current and potential problems allows the customer to either budget for the repairs or start looking for another vehicle before the current one dies.  The service advisor at the shop needs to have a good understanding of a customer’s situation relative to how he or she uses the car and then must help prioritize repairs.

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Preventive Maintenance- Oversold Hype?

Monday, May 18th, 2009

Does changing the fluids in a car really help? Well, it helps, but you have to consider your plan for how long you will keep those wheels and how they will be used. If you trade every couple of years, just changing the oil and keeping the other fluids topped off will be enough. On the other hand if your plan is to keep it until the wheels fall off, then preventive maintenance including changing fluids becomes very important. We see a lot of cooling system problems such as failed radiators and heater cores from not changing antifreeze. We also notice a lot of water outlet failures too (they’re plastic) in cars with old antifreeze. Antifreeze and power steering fluid should be changed every three years, and brake fluid every two. Heater core replacement in VW and Audi vehicles requires disassembly of the interior of the car and is a big job, so you can imagine how expensive it is. Power steering units for these cars are very expensive also. Cars will last many years and hundreds of thousands of miles by performing scheduled maintenance.

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What Noise?

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

Believe it or not noise problems are some of the most difficult problems to cure. It starts with the customer’s vague description of the situation which results in a lot of time being spent by the technician who sometimes cures the “wrong” noise. See, the technician views the problem from a safety and reliability standpoint, whereas the owner of the vehicle views it as an annoyance he or she can’t live with. I have fixed the “wrong” noise so many times that I now require the customer to ride with a technician and point it out to him. It is surprising how many times a car is dropped off and it makes no noise, but if the owner of the vehicle is able to point it out when the condition is present, the technician may be able to find it. Or the owner may decide not to spend money looking for it. We have some sophisticated tools to locate noises – our ears and a 4 channel electronic listening device. Even with the electronic device the technician has to decide where to put the transmitters and that is where the owner comes in. A detailed description of the noise including what it sounds like (marbles in a can is one example), when it happens, and when it was first noticed is helpful. Any information that gets the technician in the right area as soon as possible saves time and time is money. Help him help you. It’ll save you money in the end

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Replace that Timing Belt

Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008

A couple of months ago we recommended a timing belt to one of our customers based on the age of the belt. It hadn’t reached the end of its life in mileage terms, but after over 30 years in the automotive business, I have noticed that the age of the belt is critical. Our shop has seen belts that have a 90,000 mile change interval tear at 60,000 miles if over 5 years old. The age of the belt increases the risk of failure enormously. Unfortunately, our customer didn’t heed our advice and instead of spending about $600 for a maintenance service, he ended up spending $2500 for the repair. Belt failure is without warning and instantaneous. Damage can include repairs as described above, to replacement of the whole engine. Just like batteries belts fail at the worst of times, on a vacation, late at night, or traveling to an important event or meeting.

PJ

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