San Diego Auto Repair

When you’re finally old enough and have the budget to get your first car, it’s easy to get so excited or overwhelmed that you make mistakes. Some teens rush out and get the coolest looking cheap car they can find, only to later discover the hoses are held on by duct tape and the car is hugely unreliable. Some teens are lucky enough to get hand-me-down cars, or their parents are in on the new car hunt to offer valuable car-shopping advice. Either way, here are a few tips as you take your first steps to being an independent car owner.   Image ... read more

Are you prepared for some common scenarios that could come up with your car or on the road? Here are 5 things to always have in your car for a “just in case” situation, or to be a handy helper for someone else. Image: FlickrTire Pressure Gauge Not sure if your tire is leaking? Pull out your gauge and keep an eye on it! You should be keeping your tires properly inflated and checking pressures regularly, but if you think a tire might be leaking, checking the pressure every morning can help you decide if you have a hole that needs repaired, or if it was just an optical illusion. Jumper Cables It happens to everyone. It’s a rainy morning,  you leave your lights on after the drive in to work, and by the afternoon your battery is dead. If you have jumper cables ... read more

It’s the holiday season, which means an estimated 90% of holiday travel will occur via automobile as people head out to join their families (according to the AAA 2012/2013 Year-End Holidays Travel Forecast). Is your car ready for the journey? Image: Flickr Depending on how far you’re going, you’ll want to make sure you’re prepared in different ways.  If you're sticking to shorter trips (say, from San Diego to Los Angeles) you should inspect and top off your fluids, inspect your tires for damage or excessive wear, and maybe make sure there are spare batteries around for any electronics your kids are using to distract them from the drive. For longer trips, such as up to the Bay Area and beyond, you should take a little more time with your fluid checks. If you’re already overdue for a service such as an oil change or a new set of brakes, you should ha ... read more

It’s finally starting to warm up all across this great country of ours meaning it is finally time to start thinking about summer road trip season. And since we have already explored some of the top summer road trip cars, now let’s look at some of the best road trip routes this summer. Some you may have heard of and some may be new to you, but we promise that none of these roads will disappoint. You may even get lucky and avoid cries of "are we there yet?" from the back seat. Tail of the Dragon—Located to the East in the Smoky Mountains along a stretch of US 129, this is considered the most challenging driving road in the United States thanks to 318 curves over the course of just 11 miles. Now, take this road at full speed and your passengers may get nauseous (and you may hit a tree...) so we recommend you try a few passes along ... read more

With summer fast approaching this time of year we start to see many overheating engine failures. The number one failure is coolant hoses and belts. This is because they're the most overlooked part under "recommended preventative maintenance" in today’s automobiles. Many drivers don't understand or believe how important they are. In this video, you see what a blown radiator looks like and what kind of damage it can do to a modern engine. From 1980-2000 our belts and hoses were made from neoprene compound (rubber). Over time as they heated up and cooled down they would naturally start to crack, making it easy to identify worn belts and hoses. When your car was being serviced the technician would point this out and recommend their replacement and many people would listen because they could see the wear. Flash forward to today. Sinc ... read more

Summer is here (well... maybe not officially but nobody told that to San Diego weather!) and we've got road trips on the mind. We looked at the 2013 models to determine which make the top 10 summer road trip cars and we think we've got a pretty useful list, if we do say so ourselves. We included vehicles that cater to the fuel efficiency and budget minded folk (road trips can get expensive, after all) but that doesn’t mean we didn't include cars with a little oomph! Besides, what's the point of having a new car if it offers so little fun that you would never consider a road trip in the first place? Now, we don’t care if you're just visiting relatives in Des Moines or if you decide it’s finally a good time to drive from sea to shining sea on our nation’s glorious potholed highways and byways. After all, you haven’t really lived until you've seen the world’s largest outdoor ball of twine in Cawker City, Kansas. (Yes, it’s ... read more

Keep your alloy wheels looking their best In recent years, many drivers and automakers have chosen to accent their vehicles with attractive alloy wheels. These designer wheels give cars a touch of class to an often neglected part of the vehicle, and the diverse selection of aftermarket wheels allows drivers to give their vehicles a custom look. Without maintenance, however, alloy wheels can lose their attractiveness and even fail to work properly. Fortunately a little care can keep your wheels attractive and functional for years. Wash Your Wheels Regularly Over time, harmful chemicals can accumulate on your wheels. Brake dust is a common contaminant that will build up through regular driving. If left alone, this corrosive dust can damage the protective coatings on your wheels and even eat through metal of the wheels themselves. In addition to marring the finish of your wheels, this etching can actually eat holes through your wheels ... read more

Motor oil has always been called the lifeblood of a car. Without it, cars do not run well - or at all - for any length of time. Any driver knows it’s essential that a car’s oil is changed on a regular basis to properly lubricate all of a car's valves and parts, and if a car’s oil is not changed on a regular basis, mechanical problems to the engine are inevitable. However, the traditional 3,000 miles oil change is history, for the most part. Oil chemistry and engine technology in new cars has improved to the point where the standard oil change is somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 miles.  Today, the two types of motor oil for cars are conventional motor oil and synthetic motor oil, and we'll go into detail on the difference between conventional and synthetic motor oil. Conventional motor oil is made from crude oil found beneath the ground. It is processed at refineries to maintain its base oil and additional products are ... read more

There was a time when the family car was the preserve of only the family dog. Only he or she would be invited out to sanguine family picnics, trips to the park and the most exciting place of all—the local Pet Store Parking Lot! But now, thanks to many new restraint and safety apparatus for all types of family pets, you can take most any pet in the car, truck, SUV or even in a sport coupe safely. That is not, of course, to say that Fido has been left out of this equation. As follows are our ten choices for best pet friendly 2013 vehicles by category. Most Pet Friendly Sporty Car—2013 Hyundai Veloster/Veloster Turbo: The reason the Veloster sport coupe is so pet friendly comes down to one simple and unique engineering feature—its highly useful third, human sized door. No dog likes to hop into the back of any sport coupe and you try restraining a cat in the back of your Porsche 911 without throwing out your back. We ... read more

Even if you're one of the lucky ones who loves your job, getting on the road every morning with thousands of other drivers all trying to balance shaving and polishing off a breakfast burrito isn't easy. The stop and go, getting cut off, and being honked at when it totally wasn't your fault can put the most positive people in the wrong frame of mind for starting the work day. And getting back home is no walk in the park, either (if your daily commute does involve a walk in the park perhaps you're already in a calmer state of mind). Either you can learn meditation techniques in Burma from a Buddhist Monk or you can just listen to your favorite driving songs that soothe, inspire and make you want to sing along like an idiot. You can deny you sing along to music in the car all you want (we know the truth), but we're sure you won’t deny that the following ten songs are a terrific remedy for workday stresses. Best Driving Songs “Let it Be”—The Beatles A truly beautifu ... read more