Boulder Auto Repair

There are several essential factors that go into how often Boulder auto owners should replace their wiper blades. Of course, the more you use your wipers, the faster the blades will wear out – especially if you use them on an icy windshield. Whether it’s a lot of bugs and road grime from CO highway  driving or lots of wet weather – your blades get a work out and start to wear.But your wiper blades break down even when they aren’t used frequently. They are damaged by sunlight and temperature changes as well. The rubber in the blades can dry out and crack and eventually fall apart. Check your wipers: If they’re not doing their critical job, have them replaced.Talk to your John’s Auto Care service specialist about how you drive – we can advise you on the best blades for your needs. Give us a call John’s Auto Care 303.442.2932 1900 55th St. #104 Boulder, CO 80301

Air quality has certainly become a hot issue in our modern Boulder world. We install air filters on our ventilation systems and in our vacuum cleaners. There’s a filter that cleans the air going into our family car’s engine — so why not one for the air in the passenger compartment? Foreign and domestic auto makers haven’t been ignoring the issue. Cabin air filters are becoming a standard feature on newer vehicles. These filters can clean particles out of the air down to three microns, which accounts for pollen, dust and most pollutants. Boulder drivers who suffer from allergies or have a respiratory disorder should be a lot more comfortable. And even if you don’t have a medical need for the filter, the cleaner air in your car just might help you breathe better, figuratively as well as literally. Cabin air filters are still fairly new in Eldorado Springs, so you ... read more

The cooling system keeps CO car owners’s engines from overheating while they are driving around Boulder, Boulder and Louisville. Its job is to move heat away from the engine. Let’s talk about the various components of the system and how they make this happen. The radiator is the part most Boulder car owners associate with the cooling system. Coolant flows through the radiator which has fine cooling fins that draw the heat out of the coolant and dissipate it into the air. To make sure there’s enough airflow over the radiator, a fan pulls air over the cooling fins even when the family car is idling. In some family cars, the fan is powered by the serpentine belt. On others, an electric motor runs the fan. Electric fans turn on and off as needed. You may have heard the fan kick on shortly after you turn your family car off. The sensor has determined that the engine needs a little help cooling down to a safe temperature. A hose connects th ... read more

Driving on bald tires is like playing roulette. Though you may be fine today, eventually your luck is going to run out. The Feds don’t have any laws for tread depth, but 42 of the states, and all of Canada, do have regulations. They consider two-thirty-seconds of an inch to be the minimum legal tread depth. Two other states, including California, consider one-thirty-second to be the minimum and six states have no standards at all. Call us at John’s Auto Care; (just call 303.442.2932) to find out what your requirements are in the Boulder, CO area. Since 1968, U.S. law has required that a raised bar be molded across all tires. When tires are worn enough that this bar becomes visible, there’s just 2/32” of tread left. But does that older standard give Boulder auto owners enough safety? Consider this: Consumer Reports recommends tire replacement when tread reaches 4/32”. And the recommendation is backed by ... read more

So you love your job, and your family life is great. Congratulations! You have achieved balance. But can you say the same for your wheels? Boulder motorists can tell if their tires are out of balance by vibrations at higher speeds on CO interstates. If one of the front tires is out, you feel the vibration in the steering wheel. If it’s a back tire, you’ll feel the vibration in your seat. Tires and wheels are pretty heavy. When a tire is mounted on a wheel at John’s Auto Care, it is usually not perfectly balanced. So the service specialist will spin the tire on a machine to determine where it’s too heavy. He will then place weights on the wheels in strategic locations to balance it out. When a tire is out of balance, it actually bounces down the road instead of rolling smoothly. Since the average size tire rotates at about 850 revolutions per minute at 60 MPH, it is actually slamming into the pavement 14 times a second. That’s where you get your vi ... read more