Ultimately, as a vehicle owner, you’ll encounter a dead car battery. Whether it’s the result of leaving your lights on or just an old battery, the quickest resolve is to jump the battery. Even though it’s one of the most common car maintenance issues, it probably still makes you nervous to hook those cables up for the first time. Jumpstarting a dead car battery is surprisingly simple, but some people never learned how, or it’s been so long since they learned they’re fuzzy on the details.

We’ve put this simple list of steps together to walk you through exactly what to do if you need to jumpstart a dead car battery.

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If you find yourself filling up a tire weekly, odds are you’ve discovered a tire leak. Locating it quickly will stop your gradual reduction of tire pressure and possibly prevent you from being stranded with a flat tire. If you find one of your tires slowly leaking air, you can follow these steps to find the leak and save yourself from a bigger problem down the line:

Step 1:  Check the Air Pressure

It’s easy for a tire leak to go unnoticed. Checking your air pressure regularly will ensure you notice any drastic variations in pressure. Keep in mind that tires will lose pressure as the outside temperature drops in the fall and winter – but if you have one tire that seems to have less pressure on a regular basis, it’s likely that you have a leak.

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Summer is here and it’s the perfect time for that classic family road trip. Before you head out for your cross country family fest, consider having your brakes checked.  Kids fighting for endless miles is stressful enough, when you need them, it’s essential to have your brakes work properly.  How can you threaten to turn this car around if you’re having trouble stopping it? Your vehicle should stop when you hit the brake pedal. If you have brake problems, it’s vital that you resolve them immediately – it’s obviously extremely dangerous to drive with faulty brakes. These 6 warning signs will let you know what to look for:
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Cars no longer adhere to that old standby of every vehicle needing an oil change every 3,000 miles or 3 months. Late model vehicles are designed to go as long as 5,000 to 7,000 miles between oil changes. With that much time in between, it is necessary to take on the little maintenance tasks yourself. This includes checking your oil. It may sound daunting, but checking your oil is a rather painless process.

It’s important to know how to check your car’s oil, you can avoid potential problems that could leave you stranded on the side of the road, or worse, purchasing a new engine. Follow this step-by-step process, and checking your oil will be no big deal in no time.

Remember science class? Like most liquids, oil expands when it’s hot. For your most accurate reading, you’ll want to check your oil when your engine is warm.

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When you’re standing on a blistering roadway, staring at your recently deflated tire, it’s easy to see why preventing flats is so appealing. You might be surprised at how easy it is to avoid this nasty, and potentially dangerous, situation. Though flat tires are unavoidable, our simple steps can help you to prolong the life of your tires and delay flats.

1. Check Your Air Pressure
Check your owner’s manual to be sure that your tires are inflated to the correct pressure. When over-inflated, your vehicle will be more difficult to handle and the ride will be rougher. When tires are under-inflated, they’re subject to wear, and will do so unevenly.

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Photo credit: Wikipedia

In our recent blog post about reasons why your check engine light comes on, we mentioned a possible cause could be misfiring spark plugs. We had several people ask us how you know your spark plugs are misfiring, so we thought we’d post some of the common signs in this week’s post.

Your spark plugs are a vital part in your car’s engine and electrical system. Your engine depends on your spark plugs for maximum fuel efficiency and engine power, so it’s important to be sure that you remember to check your spark plugs on a regular basis. Like any other mechanical part, they’ll wear out over time, so you need to know the signs that your spark plugs are wearing out.

We’ve compiled this list of possible symptoms so you’ve got an easy point of reference:

1. Your car is hard to start – particularly on cold mornings. continue reading…

Back in the “olden days,” people used to park their car in the driveway every weekend and spend an hour or so washing and waxing their car. In recent times, people don’t seem to wash their cars as often as they used to, but washing your car is the best way to maintain your new car finish. Washing your car should be as much a part of your monthly maintenance routine as checking tire pressure and oil level.

It’s important to be careful when you’re washing your car – you don’t want to scratch your paint or damage your finish. We’ve put together some answers for the most common questions that we hear from our customers about washing a car.

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