by Admin | Apr 24, 2018 | Auto Care Blog
Here is how to jump start a car battery with jumper cables and do it safely. Cars aren’t the most loyal things sometimes. Batteries will go dead, sometimes because you left a light on and other times because an electrical short happened or the alternator is dying. No matter the cause, here is the safe way to get back on the road.
How to Jump Start a Car Battery
Always carry jumper cables in your car. You will find there will be many times you’ll need to help a motorist and show them how to jump start a car battery.
- Check the voltage of your car battery and the other car’s battery that you’ll use to get yours going. They must be the same voltage and the same negative ground. Check both cars’ manuals.
- Put the cars facing each other, engine to engine, without touching. If the cars touch it could cause a short. You will work between the cars.
- Shut off everything in both cars before you start.
- A frozen battery will explode, so don’t even try.
- Clean the battery posts with baking soda so that you can see which is positive (+) and which is negative (-).
- Put the red (or yellow) cable in one hand and don’t let it touch anything. Use the other hand to put the other red (or yellow) clamp on the dead battery’s positive cable.
- Put the first red cable on the good battery’s positive cable.
- Clamp the black cable to the negative post of the good battery.
- Clamp the other black cable to a cleaned spot on a bracket under the hood somewhere, but never clamp it to the dead battery’s negative post.
Start the good battery car and let it run for 5 minutes. Then start the dead battery car. It should start right up. Remove the cables in the reverse order.
by Admin | Mar 6, 2018 | Auto Care Blog
Here is an oil change near you that you can depend on and trust, plus there are coupons! A1 Performance Auto Repair specializes in all makes and models of cars and trucks. They handle both gasoline and diesel engines. A1 Performance Auto Repair serves the entire Sunnyvale and surrounding areas.
Oil Change near Me
When you’re Googling for “oil change near me” you need a new oil change place that you can trust. It is probably time to start using a real mechanic for all of your maintenance needs. There are a lot of reasons why.
When you have your oil changed, you are best served by an auto mechanic. A trained mechanic instinctively knows what prep to do to not damage your while doing a simple oil change. It is easy to strip the drain plug if you are not careful, as many of the employees at oil change places find out.
But besides taking the proper care with your car during scheduled maintenance, a mechanic will keep his eye out for other things that are amiss with your car. He is not likely to miss a mysterious oil spot on the engine or a broken brake that is visible from underneath the car. Investigating these little out of the ordinary occurrences when they start can save you hundreds or thousands of dollars down the road.
So, before you just find yet another “oil change near me” place to change your car’s oil without damaging it, start developing a relationship with a real mechanic near you. A1 Performance Auto Repair has excellent Yelp reviews and has a lot coupons to use to try us out with your car’s maintenance needs.
by Admin | Feb 26, 2018 | Auto Care Blog
Your struts should last for 4 to 5 years or 50,000 to 100,000 miles, but every car and driver are unique. While some drivers could keep those original struts for twice that amount of time, there are drivers and conditions that will wear them out in less than 50,000 miles. So, here are some signs that are telling you it is time to replace them.
Struts
The job a strut has is to hold the car up and smooth out all those bumps and pothole jolts. They will save your tire wear typically and keep the car from jiggling apart. While car bouncing is cool if you’re a low rider, it isn’t so cool for everyone else. As a matter of fact, you’ll want it to stop immediately. Here are some signs that it is time to swap out your struts.
Excessive Bouncing
Your baby loves bouncing, but your mother-in-law not so much. When your struts are worn out you’ll be bouncing like crazy after every pothole you hit on the road.
Fluid Leak
You will see a little bit of fluid on your struts normally. If there is a lot of fluid running down your strut and even so much it is dripping then they probably need replacement.
Weird Tire Wear
A broken or worn out strut will cause tire cupping. This is caused by the bouncing taking little chunks out of your tires. So, you’re driving around leaving a little trail of tire bits.
Squatting and Bowing
If you accelerate and your car’s rear end goes down in sort of a squat or when you stop your front end takes a bow, it is time to have the struts looked at.
Deals on Struts
A1 Performance Auto Repair will have deals on struts from time to time. Keep an eye on our deals page and you might get to save a chunk of change when replacing some or all of your struts.
by Admin | Feb 20, 2018 | Auto Care Blog
There are so many choices when it comes to the cheapest roadside assistance and your insurance company tends to have a very cheap plan. But there is something that your insurance company doesn’t want you to know.
Cheapest Roadside Assistance
Your auto insurance company likely has the cheapest roadside assistance, running in cost around $6 to $14 per month. This sounds like quite the deal, until you find out that it might drive up your insurance rates if you ever use it.
The reason your rates will go up isn’t because you’ve had an accident and you’re calling for assistance. You could go out to your car in the morning and have a dead battery. So, you use your roadside assistance with your insurance company. Suddenly you see your insurance rate climb. You’ve had no tickets and no accidents. It makes no sense that your insurance is going up so rapidly.
Well, it does make sense. Your rate is climbing because you used your insurance policy’s roadside assistance plan. Insurance companies treat these calls as an ‘incident.’ Traffic tickets are also counted as an incident. Auto accidents are an incident. Having an incident sends your rates soaring.
How to Avoid Rate Increases
The best way to avoid your insurance rates going up when you use roadside assistance is to use a plan that is not connected to your insurance. Use AAA or another auto club that is not provided by an insurance company. And really, sometimes they are the cheapest roadside assistance plan. With an auto club you never have to worry about your rates being raised because you used the plan to get some roadside help when you needed it.
by Admin | Jan 26, 2018 | Auto Care Blog
If you enjoy saving several hundred dollars, this vehicle brake tip is for you. Once every year ask your auto mechanic to pull the wheel and take a look at your brake shoes to check the wear. It could save you hundreds of dollars in a huge repair.
When to Change Brake Shoes
If you hear a scraping sound all the time, it could be a broken brake shoe or a worn out brake shoe. Normally when a shoe is worn down it’ll make a scraping sound when you press the brake to stop.
When you hear a squeak sound coming from the drum brakes, it could be just a heavy layer of dust and dirt making that sound and the shoes are fine.
If you’ve noticed that your car doesn’t respond normally when you press the brake to stop, there could be more than just worn down brake shoes going on. The brake drums might be affected and you need to see your mechanic as soon as you can. Your car might not be safe to drive.
When your parking brake won’t hold anymore, it could mean that the brake shoes have worn down to a point where they need replacing. Have them checked as soon as it is convenient.
When the brake drum is damaged from worn out shoes or for another reason, you will need to replace the drums on each side of your car and the shoes, too. You’ll know the brake drum is toast when the back end of your car shimmies when you brake.
You can head off a costly repair by having the mechanic check your brake shoes at least once a year when he changes the oil. Catching the worn out shoe early will save you hundreds of dollars in drum replacements. Stop by A1 Performance Auto Repair to have your drum shoe wear checked.
by Admin | Jan 20, 2018 | Auto Care Blog
When you’re having a hard time staying on the road due to a tremendous amount of bouncing around every time you hit a pothole, it might be time to have your shocks replaced. But something else might be causing the problem instead.
Shocks
When you hit a bump in the road or a pothole, which is sort of the opposite of a bump in the road, the first things that spring into action are the springs. They compress to keep your head from hitting the roof of the car. Immediately after that the shock absorbers absorb the bouncing around your car needs to do. If all is perfect under the car with these parts then you have a smooth ride. If things are not in perfect working order, you are being bounced all over the place.
Shocks do wear out over time. There are only so many bounces it is going to take for you. How long they last depends on your typical road condition, the quality of your shocks and how you drive. So, you really need to know the signs.
Bouncing
A crazy amount of bouncing around means the shocks are toast.
Noises
Sometimes worn out or broken shocks make a lot of noises when you hit a pothole or rippled dirt road.
Lopsided Car
A car that looks lopsided on one tire might have a broken spring. You should probably have that looked at right away.
Bottomed Out
If you bottom out when you go over railroad tracks, that’s a pretty good sign your shocks are shot.
What to Do
If you suspect a spring is broken or your shocks are worn out, stop by A1 Performance Auto Repair. We’ll get your car fixed up. Do check our Deals Page before you come in. We just might be having a special!
