Posted on Sunday 24 March 2024
When you turn on the air conditioning in your vehicle, you expect cool air to come out of the vents. You depend on it, especially in hot weather, but it can also be important in humid weather when you need it to help defrost your windows and windshield. The air conditioning system has a lot of parts to it. It has fans and blowers to move the air through the vents into the cabin. It has parts that take hot air and cool it off. An electrical problem can be as simple as a broken switch or a broken blower motor. The air may not be getting cool because a hose in the system is broken or the refrigerant has leaked out. Two major components are the compressor and the condenser. The compressor pressurizes the refrigerant, one step in the air conditioning process. The condenser takes that hot refrigerant and cools it down. It also reduces the pressure. Because the climate control system in your vehicle is so complex, it’s best to leave the diagnosis to a ... read more
Posted on Sunday 17 March 2024
In warm weather, you want to be in a cool vehicle. When we're talking cool, we don't mean stylish or trendy, but cool as in not sweltering inside. And if your vehicle's air conditioner stops working correctly, it seems to always break at the worst time—during a heat wave. Automotive air conditioning problems fail for a number of reasons: Blower motor not working. No air comes through the vents, even though the rest of the system could be working fine. Refrigerant leak. When the gas that cools the air off escapes from the air conditioning system, your air conditioner can no longer cool off the outside air Condenser and compressor. These are parts of your AC system that compress and expand a refrigerant gas to cool off the outside air. They are fairly complex. When you bring your vehicle into our service center, we'll run a series of diagnostic tests to figure out what isn't working correctly. The air conditioning system has a lot of parts. There are elect ... read more
Posted on Sunday 10 March 2024
Many of us have become aware of how important it is to keep our planet’s air clean, and your vehicle has a key component that helps do just that: the catalytic converter. It’s in the exhaust system, and its job is to superheat unburned, harmful byproducts in the exhaust, so they don’t get spewed out into the atmosphere. There’s another important purpose the catalytic converter has: it improves your vehicle’s efficiency. Most of us don’t give the catalytic converter much thought until it breaks or someone steals yours, something that’s been happening much more frequently in recent years. The reason people steal them is that catalytic converters use precious metals such as platinum, palladium, and rhodium to do their job. So, they contain valuable materials thieves can sell. The most likely reason you will have to replace your catalytic converter is age. The more distance your vehicle travels and the more hours your engine ... read more
Posted on Sunday 03 March 2024
When one of your vehicle’s warning lights comes on, the first thing that comes to mind is, “Oh, no, what’s wrong now?” When it’s the battery light, it means there’s something wrong with your vehicle’s battery or charging system. And because both are important for your vehicle to work properly, it’s a good idea to get it checked out. Here are some things that may cause a battery light to illuminate. It could be that your battery has failed. It could be on its last legs or completely dead. When it isn’t showing it has the voltage it should, your vehicle lets you know. If it’s not the battery itself, it could be the system that charges it. The alternator is part of that system and could have a problem. It could be putting out no power, too little power, or too much. The alternator may not be working because the belt that drives it (using the engine’s mechanical power) could be broke ... read more