Spring Car Love

Posted on April 10, 2013 by randrinc

Spring is the time for car love! Not only should you be thinking about giving your car the TLC it needs it needs to recover from winter’s brutal wear and tear, it’s also time to think about preventative maintenance. Properly maintaining your vehicle will save you aggravation and keep you safer. It’s also the secret to joining our Quarter Million Mile Club and saving big bucks.

Your owner’s manual will provide you with the minimum care your car requires to survive the long-term warranty. Here are the tasks that should be on your own preventative maintenance checklist and that you can take care of on your own:

Change the oil and filter regularly. We recommend every 3,000 miles if you use regular oil and every 5,000 miles for synthetic. Don’t forget to check your oil level at least once a month.
Check all fluids regularly. These include windshield washer, antifreeze, as well brake fluid, transmission, and power steering.
Check the air pressure level once a month.
Check the windshield wiper blades regularly. Look for split rubber at both ends of the blades. If the rubber is split or the wipers are smearing or streaking, replace them.

Unless you’re a home mechanic, let a professional take care of Spring maintenance. Your R&R Service Team will check the engine belts and hoses, drive train, steering, suspension, and transaxle fluid. In addition, we’ll also check the shocks, struts, CV boot, brakes, exhaust, charger, and starting system. If you like, we also can take care of that oil change for you, too. Just ask. Make your appointment today.

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.

Products & Services Your Car Does Not Need

Posted on October 24, 2012 by randrinc

Three products your car doesn’t need

Just as there are cosmetics that are useless, there are car products that are useless, too. While none of these are big-ticket items, those nickels and dimes add up.

Oil additives. Your engine needs the correct oil, changed regularly. Oil additives not only don’t work, but can be harmful.
Gas-savers. The EPA has tested them all, and they don’t work. Some can even lower engine performance.
Nitrogen fill of tires. Don’t do it, unless you just enjoy burning cash.

Four services your car doesn’t need

No matter what that service manager says, your car does not need the following procedures:

Engine flush. What your engine does need are regular oil changes.
Fuel-injection cleaning. This unnecessary service could set you back as much as $200.
Transmission flush. Flushing the transmission can stir up sediment that can then travel into small passages, such as precision valves, and affect the shifting quality of the transmission. If anything, R&R would recommend an alternate procedure, a drain and refill, which minimizes the chances of agitating sediment. You don’t really need a drain and refill, either, but if you decide you like the idea, do it regularly or not at all to minimize the chances of transmission damage. We recently encountered a customer whose transmission was destroyed in the aftermath of a dealer-advised transmission flush.
Power steering flush. In our experience, this is unnecessary unless a failed steering component is being replaced.