Des Moines Auto Repair

Many bad habits are linked to our behavior patterns. The same can be said of our driving. Learn how your driving habits can affect your vehicle's performance. You may also want to learn how to change these habits to make your car drive better and last for years to come.  1. Resting Your Hand on the Gear Shift of an Automatic Transmission We know it is a comfortable position to have your hand resting on the gear shifter of the car. Did you know, though, that this can put pressure on the transmission bushings and synchronizes? It is best to keep both hands on the steering wheel. 2. Making Hard Starts or Stops The hard starts at the green lights will cause poor fuel mileage. If you can, ease your foot onto the gas pedal and take off as slowly as possible. Also, the hard stops will cause more wear and tear on the braking components of the vehicle. When these parts wear down, you will need to replace them sooner than you should have if you had been stopping suddenly only when n ... read more

April is known as National Car Care Month. And, with good reason. Winter wreaks havoc on cars and after the winter thaw, it becomes necessary to perform an annual spring maintenance check and inspection on your vehicle. This is to ensure that all aspects of your motor vehicle are performing at an optimal level. Small hidden problems can thus be identified and addressed before these problems become serious. Here are seven checklist items for your annual spring maintenance check and inspection: Test and Replace Your Car Battery The car's battery and the electrical system work harder during winter, and thus, it becomes necessary to check and replace the battery during spring. Check Car Tires Changing temperatures could result in uneven air pressure. This in turn causes uneven wear on the tires. Apart from tire pressure, tire treads should also be inspected to ensure that there is sufficient tread left. Place a penny in the groove of the tread. If t ... read more

When bringing your car to a stop, it may briefly cross one's mind that there is a mechanism at work that pushes one thing against another, ultimately bringing the vehicle to a halt, as and when you need to. You may even have heard home-based mechanics talking about brake shoes and brake pads and other words that relate to bringing vehicles to a safe halt, and these words being bandied about may even sound like they mean the exact same thing. But this is not true. Brake shoes and brake pads are essentially two different parts of a whole braking system in your car. We all know that brake pads' primary function is to slow down or stop the motion of a moving machine or vehicle. But do you understand what a brake pad itself does to stop or slow down a vehicle or a machine? This is the part of the braking system in your car that is the rubber lining inside the caliper, which is part of the large metal structure clamped to the side of the rotor, located at your car's wheels. B ... read more

A thermostat is an essential part of running a car engine because it regulates the temperature using coolants. The thermostat, which is a cooling component, prevents the flow of coolants to the engine until the engine heats up. It has a sensor that opens it when the engine is running hot and restores it to the radiator's optimal operating temperatures. In case the car engine heats up, and it remains like that, then the engine's performance will be affected because there is no way it will get to optimal working temperatures on its own. Before that happens, knowing how a normal and faulty thermostat works are vital for a car owner, driver, or mechanic. For that reason, the common symptoms that indicate a failing thermostat include: 1. An overheating engine This is the first and most alarming symptom of a failing thermostat. When the temperature gauge is reading very high after starting the engine, and it remains the same for a while, that is a bad thermostat s ... read more

For starters, brake rotors are those large discs behind the car's wheels. They move together with the wheels, so when the driver clamps down the brake pads, it will hold them, and the car would stop. Brake discs usually get heated as the vehicle moves. The discs need to dissipate the heat so fast because the brakes might overheat and press down again. In the worst-case scenario, the brake system may get damaged. The surface of the brake rotor may become uneven, making the braking system to be less effective and jittery. This is what's called warping. How the brake rotors get warped There's a misconception that when the brake rotor is said to have warped, then it means they are bent and wobble while rotating as it happens with the bicycles, but that's not the case. For a car, for warping to take place, warping means the brake rotors are defective. The temperature required to make them bend is very high and difficult to achieve because the metal used ... read more