Based on the above definition, #2 to be exact, there is no doubt that we are experiencing an epidemic. Over the past year, we have seen dozens of Mini Coopers coming into our facility with a very low oil level. This is serious because it can dramatically reduce the life of a Mini Cooper engine!
You schedule a safety inspection, wake up to find it’s pouring down raining, and the auto shop says it can’t perform your inspection! At first, this seems unreasonable — bureaucracy gone wild and unfair. Let’s take a closer look at the reason why.
It’s interesting; so many things that we use today just don’t require much maintenance. When we purchase something like a television or a toaster oven, we don’t ever expect to have to take them to a repair shop. They may require a bit of cleaning now and then, but that’s just about all the maintenance we expect to do.
Here we are at the winter solstice, December 21, 2016. It’s the shortest day of the year. We are commuting in the dark or driving when the sun is low — at dawn in the morning or dusk in the evening — making visibility difficult. Couple this with fog, mist, ice and snow and driving becomes a real challenge.
One fall weekend, my wife and I were driving north on Interstate 270, going from Urbana to Frederick, Maryland, when we spotted a sign saying “Scenic Overlook.” We had some time to kill so we took the exit.
Recently, I stood in as the courtesy van driver. It’s always a fun job; I hear so many stories and my first trip out was not an exception. One of the customers described the problem he was having with his car.
I would have never thought I would be doing repair diagnostics at our local JCPenney at the Columbia Mall, but I find myself answering auto repair questions in some of the oddest places. The other day I was standing in the check-out line at JCPenney and ran into one of our British American Auto Care customers.
There are a lot of distractions for drivers these days — from GPS systems to mobile phones to all kinds of computer display panels. Get distracted long enough and you just may end up hitting a road obstacle — it could be a median strip, a pot hole or some debris in the roadway.
SRS stands for supplemental restraint system, but the more common lingo for the SRS warning light is the Air Bag System Warning Light. This light typically comes on for a few seconds when you start your car, but if it stays on, it signals that there is a problem.
When people have their car alternator replaced, the expectation is that the repair will last at least as long as the expected life of the new alternator, four to five years or anywhere from 50,000 to 100,000 miles.
Daytime running lights have been around for a while, but many people still don’t know exactly how they function as well as the benefits to drivers.
Are Noises coming from your MINI Cooper engine compartment keeping you up at night with dreams of another “sticker shock” repair?
