San Diego Auto Repair

If you're a quart low in your sedan, there isn't enough motor oil to lubricate your engine properly. The extra friction causes drag that reduces fuel economy while you're driving around the San Diego area. The same goes for dirty oil; it doesn't reduce friction properly. The result is you get to watch those numbers at your local San Diego gas pump rolling higher and higher. The transmission also needs the proper amount of clean fluid to do its work. When it's in need of service, the transmission drags your fuel economy down. So keep it clean and give yourself a fighting chance

Myths passed around our San Diego community start with a grain of evidence and are then built up with a lot of imagination and very elastic logic. And the internet is a breeding ground for automotive myths. Some bloggers recall the sedans of yesteryear and declare their modern decedents to be virtually maintenance free and that anyone who says otherwise is out to rip you off.Let's examine a couple of the more popular rants and look at the truth behind them. The first one is that the chassis no longer needs lubrication for suspension, steering and the driveline. They declare that anyone who has charged you for lubrication is a charlatan. The truth on which this myth is based is that many new cars come from the factory with sealed joints and cannot be greased. However, there are still some grease points on many cars around San Diego. A grease fitting may have been installed in conjunction with a repair. And most trucks and truck-based SUVs driving in Sa ... read more

Summer is in full swing in San Diego and we have a whole heap of summertime activities for you and your family to enjoy together. Start your weekend off with superheros and villains, then enjoy some free tunes, and finish up your weekend with a beautiful walk of jog along the beach! It's that time of year again, Comic Con 2011 has returned to the San Diego Convention Center, the home of the largest comic book and popular arts convention in the world! The first "Con" was held in 1970 and only featured comic books, science fiction, fantasy and film and television. Now the convention has expanded to include a much larger range of pop culture elements, such as horror, animation, anime, manga, toys, collectible card games, video games, webcomics, and fantasy novels. Last year, the San Diego Convention Center was filled to capacity with over 130,000 attendees. The exhibit hall hours are ... read more

Here's an interesting statistic for our readers: Only thirty percent of car batteries make it to forty-eight months. And the life expectancy varies by where you live. It ranges from fifty-one months in extremely cold areas to just thirty months in extremely hot climates. Why is that? It turns out that it's our modern cars with all their electric accessories that are to blame. Things like, GPS, DVDs, and entertainment computers are keeping car batteries from maintaining a full charge. The longer a battery goes with a low charge, the sooner it'll die. So you must recharge your battery. This is the job of the alternator. The problem comes when the car's demand for electricity is high and we are driving in stop and go conditions or short trips around San Diego or Kearny Mesa. The alternator just can't keep up. The result is shortened battery life. So what can we do to improve our battery's health? We need to keep the battery as close to a full charge as ... read more

Knowing when a car battery replacement is called for can not only keep your car on the road, but also save you the time and money of having it towed and serviced after the fact.  Most car batteries are rated to last approximately five years. Absolute values on how long they are effective vary, as battery tests can only show the condition of the battery at the exact moment of the test, and not the entire chemical composition and its state of decay. It is safe to say, however, that after five years you should have your battery checked regularly to know when a car battery replacement is necessary. Signs that you may need a car battery replacement include the battery light illuminating on the dashboard, electrical systems like air conditioning, radio or headlights performing poorly, or your car not starting at all. If there are any indications that your battery is starting to have problems, it is a good idea to have it immediately checked. When a batt ... read more

Nowadays, everyone in San Diego is paying more at the gas pump. For some families in the area, it adds up to several hundred dollars every month. That's got to come out of the budget somewhere. Throughout North America, people are putting off buying a new car. They plan on keeping their old vehicle for a year or two longer than before. Even now, 2/3 of the personal vehicles on our local roads have over 75,000 miles on them. The average age of vehicles is over nine years. And most people in San Diego can't afford to be stranded or inconvenienced by a break down. So following a regular maintenance schedule, like our personal diet and exercise plans, is actually critical to preserving your investment. Knowing what to do for a higher-mileage vehicle can be challenging because many owners' manuals don't publish service intervals after 60,000 miles. It just means that you need to be better at keeping records and planning your preventive maintenance. You can start by figuring that services w ... read more

The Dustball Rally is gearing up for its 2,000-mile car race/scavenger hunt run across the American Southwest, and its on-the-road blogger, Dustball Dave, is getting ready for his epic Dustball 2000 Project. Dave will be riding each day with one of the teams, coordinating live tweets and videos, blogging, and then creating a multimedia presentation based on his experiences. Dustball Dave can’t do it alone – he’s got his lodging and airfare covered for the Dustball 2000 project, but needs help to finance a budget for his technology, food, and other expenses so that he can deliver the best virtual experience possible. To help Dave post photos, videos and timely vignettes from the road, he’s putting out the call for donations onlin ... read more

The fourth of July has come and gone in San Diego, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t more summer fun to be had! We have a weekend’s worth of family fun to keep you busy and entertained for hours! Friday, July 8th, take the kids to see “Jemima Puddle-Duck” at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido. There will be two performances, one at 2:30pm and one at 7pm. The Hudson Vagabond Puppets will bring this tale by Beatrix Potter to life with “larger-than-life puppets who dance and act in narrated ballets to this beloved children's story." Your kids will even be invited onstage towards the end of the show to dance with the puppet performers. Ticket prices range from $12-15. Click ... read more

No matter how well they’re made, cars are bound to have problems with their design or manufacturing. When the government thinks a problem is really serious, they require the manufacturer to issue a recall notice to residents and to fix the car free of charge. The manufacturer then tries to contact everyone who owns that type of car in San Diego and elsewhere until the work is done. These recalls always affect safety, so you need to take them seriously. It’s really easy to find out if a vehicle is being recalled. Other website include: carfax.com; autobytel.com; and dmv.org. All of these sites have free recall searches. Recalls are pretty serious and don’t happen all that often. But sometimes cars have less serious problems that you still might want to know about. In this case, manufacturers issue what is known as a Tech ... read more

A recent report stated that over 80 percent of the vehicles on our roads have one or more service or repair that's needed, but hasn't been taken care of. Now that's a lot of undone service. That translates into something over 160 million vehicles in the U.S. alone. Some of the neglected items are minor. Others are serious safety concerns. There are several reasons why we hesitate to take care of recommended services; especially services that our automotive advisor recommends when we're in for something else, like an oil change. The first issue boils down to comfort with car care. We don't always feel we know enough to make good decisions. Some of that can be attributed to the fact that vehicles are so reliable these days. They almost become an appliance. Of course you love your sedan, but if you don't have to worry about it breaking down all the time, you're not forced to thi ... read more