Spring Cleaning Your Car

Posted on April 13, 2013 by randrinc

SPRING CLEANING YOUR CAR

The cherry trees have bloomed, and temperatures are soaring. With the sudden arrival of summer, it’s time to do some spring cleaning on your car. In our last post, we talked about the spring maintenance necessary to the mechanics of your car. Now we have some tips on getting sparkly clean and smelly good.

Washing your car

Wash only when the car is cool, and only in the shade. Sun and heat will making washing more difficult and case spots and deposit to form.
Use a specially prepared car detergent. Household cleaners are too strong to use on car paint.
Rinse before washing to remove as much debris as possible in order to minimize scratching the finish. When rinsing off soap, do not spray the car. Instead,let the water flow gently from the top of the car to the bottom. This will create a sheeting action that will reduce the pooling of water.
Wash in sections, starting at the top and working your way down.
Use only a lamb’s wool mitt or a natural sponge. To avoid swirl marks, wash in lengthwise strokes rather than with a circular motion. Thoroughly rinse the mitt or sponge frequently, and use a separate sponge for the wheels and tires.
Use two buckets — the first for clean, soapy water, and the second to rinse the dirty sponge.
Use bug-and-tar remover and a non-abrasive cloth to remove grease, tar, and rubber deposits.
Wash frequently. Atmospheric chemicals, dead bugs, and bird dropping can cause damage to the finish if left too long.
Dry the car with a chamois or soft terry towels. Blot water rather than swiping the towel across the surface. Do not let the car air dry unless you like the water-spotted look.

Source: http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2012/12/do-s-and-don-ts-of-washing-your-car/index.htm

Get that clean-car smell

Bad smells can be tough to remove. Here are some suggestions:

Remove smelly items and stains as soon as possible.
Vaccuum regularly.
Household cleaners are usually safe for cleaning stains or spills inside the car. Test in an obscure spot first.
Stained or stinky mats? Remove from car, vacuum both sides, and shampoo. If they smell moldy, spray the back sides with a bleach solution, rinse, and allow to bake dry in the sun.
Household room fresheners mask odor, but odor eliminators formulated for cars remove odors by chemically neutralizing them.
Sprinkle baking soda on dry surfaces to absorb orders overnight, then vacuum. Do not put baking soda onto a wet surface.
An open bag of coffee beans left in the car overnight will filter out odors.

Source: http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2012/09/how-to-rid-your-car-of-odors/index.htm

About Manufacturers’ Warranties

Posted on December 10, 2012 by randrinc

In our last post, we urged you to consider changing the oil in your car more frequently than is required by your car’s maker in order to fulfill the conditions of the warranty.

Now let’s talk more about manufacturers’ warranties. If you were to compare the owners’ manuals of today’s cars with the manuals of vehicles manufactured 20 years ago, you could reasonably conclude that today’s cars need less maintenance than yesteryear’s. You would also have good reason to wonder why a service facility would urge you to authorize more maintenance work on your vehicle than is advised by your manual.

Whom do you trust, the manufacturer or the mechanic?

When deciding the maintenance schedule for your car, consider your auto maker’s perspective. Auto makers have no vested interest in ensuring that your vehicle will last much longer than the extended warranty they offer you. Generally, new power train warranties don’t extend beyond three years or 36,000 miles. A few extend to 100,000 miles. Is it any coincidence that many of today’s vehicles are marketed as needing little or no maintenance for 100,000 miles?

Auto makers, of course, must cover warranty costs should their maintenance recommendations prove inadequate. The problem of oil gelling troubled the owners of 1997 through 2002 Toyotas. Oil gelling occurs when oil in a vehicle is too old, and it can destroy an engine. Toyota was required to cover “repair costs and incidental expenses for which a customer has paid or could incur as a result of damage due to oil gelling for a period of eight years from the date of first sale or lease without a mileage limitation” for those owners.

Our advice? Use your owner’s manual as a guide, and find a mechanic you trust. At R&R Auto Service, we want to see you tooling happily down life’s highways long after your extended warranty has expired. In fact, we hope you’ll join The R&R Quarter Million Mile Club. We also want to protect the resale value of your vehicle. Unless you tell us otherwise, we advise maintenance with the longevity of your car in mind. Stay involved and ask questions when your car is in our care. We are happy to discuss your car with you.

Oil & Filter: How Often Should You Change Them?

Posted on November 1, 2012 by randrinc

If you’ve ever maintained your own vehicle, you may remember the old standard rule to change the oil and filter every 3,000 miles. However, if you check the owner’s manual of most of today’s vehicles, you’ll probably find the manufacturer recommends that, with the exception of “severe driving conditions,” oil changes can be stretched safely to every 7,500 miles or once a year. The manufacturer also probably recommends a new oil filter with every second oil change.

Here’s the catch. As defined by auto makers, severe conditions include:

Making frequent, short trips of less than fives miles.
Making frequent, short trips of less than 10 miles when temperatures are below freezing.
Driving in hot weather stop-and-go traffic.
Extensive idling and/or low-speed driving for long periods of time (taxi, police, door-to-door delivery, etc.).
Driving at sustained high speeds during hot weather.
Towing a trailer.
Driving in areas with heavy dust (gravel roads, construction zones, and so on).

Under this definition, few drivers in a congested metropolitan area qualify as NOT driving in severe driving conditions.

Our advice? With the longevity of your car in mind, we recommend following the advice of the mechanics of generations past: If you use regular oil in your vehicle, change the oil and filter every 3,000 miles or three months. If you use synthetic oil, change the oil every 5,000 miles or every five months. It’s the most economical, most effective preventive maintenance you can give your vehicle.