Boulder Auto Repair

Most cars and trucks have automatic transmissions, yet a lot of Lafayette motorists only have a fuzzy understanding about what a transmission does. Think back to the last time you rode a bike in Lafayette. You started out in a lower gear and shifted to higher gears as you went faster. Down shift for hills, stuff like that. Think of your legs as the engine – there’s an ideal speed you can pedal and you change gears to leverage the work you’re doing. Lower gears for power on hills or for starting out. Higher gears for more speed. That’s what the automatic transmission does – it automatically starts in lower gears and shifts up to higher gears to go faster on CO highways. And automatically shifts back down to climb Lafayette hills, pass or start up again. family car automatic transmissions have certainly gotten more sophisticated in recent years. They have more speeds than before: the ... read more

Every car in Boulder, CO is at risk for theft. So it’s up to us Boulder drivers to make our cars a less appealing target and more of a challenge – hopefully sending potential thieves to look elsewhere. The National Insurance Crime Bureau recommends a layered approach to protecting vehicles:Common senseVisible and audible devicesImmobilizing devicesTracking devicesLet’s review each of these. First, common sense: you would be surprised how many vehicles are stolen in CO where the keys were left in the ignition with the doors unlocked. Always take your keys and lock the doors. In fact, in some places it’s against the law to leave a vehicle unattended with the keys in the ignition. And don’t leave spare keys in the car or hide them outside – because a thief will find them. Boulder auto owners would be wise to park in well-lit areas that have a lot of foot traffic. If p ... read more

Taking care of our tires is a vital part of car care for Boulder drivers. We know they have to be replaced when they wear out, but tires also require some essential preventive maintenance. This maintenance will improve fuel efficiency and extend the life of the tires, so it’s well worth the effort and expense for Boulder car owners to get it done. Tire maintenance includes keeping tires properly inflated, rotating tires and balancing wheels. The recommended tire pressure for a vehicle’s tires is printed on a sticker on the inside of the driver’s side doorjamb. A lot of engineering goes into calculating the correct pressure, so it’s an important number for Boulder drivers to know. Not following this recommendation can throw off the suspension system and can lead to costly tire damage. Underinflated tires wear out more quickly than properly inflated tires. Vehicles also get better traction, handling and gas mileage on properly inflat ... read more

If you aren’t currently using synthetic motor oil in your Boulder vehicle, maybe now’s the time to consider it. Need more information? Well, synthetic motor oil is a substitute for petroleum based oil. Synthetic oil doesn’t gel or gum-up like petroleum based oil and it doesn’t vaporize as easily. It protects better in severe driving conditions like stop and go driving around Boulder, as well as in very hot or very cold conditions. More and more new vehicles are being delivered with full synthetic motor oil; with the recommendation to use synthetic for the life of the vehicle. Why is this? Synthetic motor oil maximizes engine power and fuel economy. To see why; we’d need a microscope, so we’ll have to settle for using our imaginations. The molecules of conventional motor oil are long hydrocarbon chains. Synthetic motor oil, on the other hand, has unifor ... read more

Today John’s Auto Care is talking about the proper fluids for your vehicle. It’s become more complicated with changes in automotive design and manufacturing. It’s not that people in CO are confused as much as they don’t realize how much things have changed in recent years.Let’s take engine oil. Twenty or thirty years ago, there were just a handful of different weights of oil. The weight of an oil is a scientific measure of its properties, particularly its viscosity or thickness. It was common in those days to use a lighter weight oil in the winter when it’s cold outside. That way the oil would be able to splash around inside the engine and protect the parts before it was fully warmed up. And a heavier weight oil would be used in the summer. The thicker oil wouldn’t thin out too much in the summer heat and vaporize in the engine. Modern valve trains have become very complicated with more moving parts and small passages than ev ... read more