San Diego Auto Repair

August 20-28 is Brake Safety Awareness Week, and it's a great time to make sure that your brakes are still delivering the stopping power you need, when you need it. Summer is winding down, and it's a sure bet that brakes will start seeing more when fall and winter hit. That means it's better to be prepared with a proactive brake check and, if necessary, brake service, rather than risking life and limb on the roads. Brakes are one of the most hard-used parts of any vehicle, and everything from braking too hard to riding the brakes or the brand of car you drive can have an impact on brake life. Some signs that a brake repair may be required include loud squealing, grabbing, loss of stopping power or significant pulling to one side when you make a stop. If you haven't had a brake service and check recently, Brake Safety Awareness Week is the perfect time to get your brake lining, brake fluid, rotors and hoses look ... read more

Your car might have an alignment problem if: it drifts or pulls to one side, your steering wheel is off center, you have uneven tire wear or your car doesn't feel like it handles right. When all of a vehicle's wheels are lined up exactly with each other, your wheels are in alignment. Running into potholes, smacking a curb or other object are great ways to knock your car out of alignment. Then one or more of your wheels starts pulling in a slightly different direction and the problems begin. Driving for an extended time when you're out of alignment causes your tires to wear unevenly and excessively. This can be dangerous and expensive. You'll have to replace your tires sooner, but even worse - you may cause premature wear to your suspension system, which can be really expensive. The front wheel alignment is adjustable on all vehicles, and the back wheels are also adjustable on some cars. The adjustment can go three different ways. The first adju ... read more

August is coming to a close, which means school is about to start and summer will be officially over. We have a few more tricks up our sleeve, though, for a family fun weekend. This weekend is all about exploring nature, ball games, and exercising for more than just your health. Friday night, take the kids out to the Kumeyaay Lake Campground in Mission Trails Regional Park for “Owl Prowl”. This free event starts at 7:30pm and will last for approximately two hours. You will join a trial guide for a guided walk in search of local owls and other nighttime birds. Meet in the dirt parking lot on the corner of Bushy Hill Drive and Father Junipero Serra Trail, across from the Kumeyaay Lake Campground entrance. This Saturday, August 20th, come out to cheer for the ... read more

For any vehicle owner, the distinction between auto maintenance and auto repair is critical to ensuring a long and healthy life for their preferred method of transportation. Both are essential in the smooth operation of a vehicle, but the terms are often confused for one another, which can lead some owners to pay more than they should over time. Auto maintenance is a broad term that covers regular and preventative actions taken to help keep a car that is running properly stay running. This maintenance can include things such as oil changes, transmission flushes, as well as annual inspections and tire rotations. All of these services help to keep a car that is running smoothly stay that way, and help prevent the need for auto repair. Auto repair is what is necessary when a vehicle has a failure of some kind - be it a broken fan belt, failed spark plugs, steering issues or braking problems. In these cases, it is necessar ... read more

In very simple terms, a fuel injector is a valve that squirts fuel into your sedan engine. Your engine control computer tells the fuel injector how much fuel to deliver as well as the precise time it should be delivered. Of course this happens thousands of times a minute in every single fuel-injected car driving down Tierrasanta, Kearny Mesa, and Mission Valley roads. Most fuel injectors for gas engines are known in the auto industry as port fuel injectors because they deliver the fuel to a port just outside the cylinder. The fuel pump provides pressure needed to squirt the right amount of fuel into the engine.Although more complicated, direct injection technology promises greater power with improved fuel economy for gas-poor Tierrasanta, Kearny Mesa, and Mission Valley commuters. CA motorists can expect to see more of it in the future.High temperatures under your sedan hood and varia ... read more

Family fun, free concerts, and a celebration of local music are what it’s all about this week in San Diego. Summer may be winding down, but we aren’t running out of fun things for you and your family to do just yet! If you haven’t checked out the new exhibit, Boundless Energy, at the Birch Aquarium, now is the perfect time. You can receive a free child admission with a paid adult by using this coupon, which expires September 6th. Boundless Energy is an interactive exhibit that encourages you to use natural forces like the renewable energy of the wind, sun, and waves, to power your life. Enjoy live music in ... read more

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