Always get a used car checked out before you buy it. Once the papers are signed and money is paid. The chance that you will get any money back when the poop hits the fan, is close to 0%
Bring your car to any ASE mechanic and they will tell you if it’s ok to buy. It is important to use a 3rd party service for your inspection. A friend or some gear head buddy may miss things that would be noticed by a professional mechanic.
HeyAnthonyAz.com
Too many times I hear this phrase, “I was driving by and you guys looked so busy.” Don’t wait, just stop in. I hear this one too, “I didn’t think you had time to look at it.” Don’t wait, just stop in. We are your friendly neighborhood garage and ready to help. Maintenance ignored leads to a break down on the road. Nobody likes sitting at the side of the road waiting on a tow truck.
Do you have a funky noise? We can look at that. Is it time for service? We do service work on all makes and models. A no start problem is no problem at Tony’s Service Center. Just stop in, we fix broken cars. Car care is a part of owning a car. Car repairs will happen and you need to be ready. Just stop in and say hi.
We use a “synthetic blend” as our standard oil. Servicing you car is the most common reason to visit a repair garage. We use a synthetic blend because it extends the oil life, offering better protection against wear and resists carbon coking. If your car needs full synthetic we stock that too.
Regular motor oil: Regular oil works great for older engines, but if you do not service it regularly and or ignore your service intervals. It can lead to heavy carbon build up “hard sludge” or coking of the internal engine parts. “Coking aka soft sludge” “Coking” is characteristic of a high temperature reactions involving hydrocarbons. On todays small high revving engines, carbon deposits may cause restricted oil flow, shortening the life span of your engine.
Full Synthetic motor oil: Synthetic oils primary use is in high heat stress applications like Arizona. Jet engines use Synthetic oil. Synthetic oils are great for cold climates too, it will flow normally even in freezing temperatures. European cars, motor cycles and many of todays small turbo charged engines need full synthetic oils to prevent sludge and carbon build up.
Just stop in and let us know how we can help.
HeyAnthonyAz.com & TonysServiceCenter.com
It’s your first week of driving your “new, used car”. Yep, its new to you, but it’s still a used car. Everything seems great, but a couple of things are bothering you. A click sound from the front end, the radio does not lock on your favorite station and the A/C just does not blow cold in the middle of the day.
You think to your self, maybe I should get this car checked out. Plus it may need other things. So a visit to the repair shop should shed some light on the small things that you have noticed so far.
Just because you took a friend or a person that knows cars with you when you went looking for cars does not protect you from a lemon. An ASE mechanic can see the red flags. A lemon is not that easy to identify, but the red flags will still be seen better by an auto technician vs a friend. Repair tech’s will look at a car with an objective pair of eyes. I know when I look at a car for a pre-purchase inspection, I have no attachment to it. I only care about one thing. “Is it worth the price being asked.”
The color and style are not factor during an inspection. The only thing that matters to me is, “is it worth the money.” So I look at 3 key factors during an inspection. 1: Is the car safe. 2: Does it drive the way it should if it was brand new off the showroom floor. 3: I look all over the vehicle for hidden damage, neglect, missed fluid services or maintenance and modifications that will affect the overall life of the vehicle.
Aftermarket and remanufactured parts are a double-edged sword. Some are great and work just like the original equipment part. My focus is on the “crappy parts” that cause early failures. Cheep aftermarket parts can cause vibration, leaks and fit issues that could lead to an on the road brake-down. I will not use an aftermarket part that can not last at least “3 years or 36,000 miles.” I would not use a part on my own vehicle that could not at least make it that long. I do not like doing repairs twice.
At Tony’s we use lot’s of dealer parts and high quality select aftermarket parts. The aftermarket parts must last as long as the original equipment part should for us to use them. Dealer parts last a long time. In most cases the OE parts will last just as long as the originally installed part did. Some aftermarket and remanufactured parts don’t last as long as the OE parts, but they should last at least 3 years or 36,000 miles.
Shopping for a car is not a big deal because your going to bring the vehicle to Tony’s Service Center to get it checked out before you buy it. Well that’s what I recommend. The things you need to look for when you are deciding on a used vehicle are the following items.
1- Go and look at vehicles during the day when the sun is up. Sun light will help you see paint flaws easier. The heat of the day will let you check the A/C for correct cooling. Check the heat, cooling and all modes of the controls. Everybody needs A/C in Arizona!
2- Does the car smell bad when it sits closed up in the heat. It may look clean, but is it? It could have been in a flood and it was cleaned up really good. Smells like mold, pet dander and smoking can linger even after a pro level detail. Close the car up and let it sit in the sun for an hour. Then go check for odd smells.
3- Drive it for 3 miles city and follow it up with a 5 mile freeway drive. You may have to spiff the sales man 20 bucks to make this happen, but it is worth it. Pay close attention and listen for road and wind noises with the windows up. Next listen for clicks and rattles, drive next to a brick wall with windows open for this part of the drive. Go drive it hard on the freeway, full throttle accelerations and hard stops. If it has an issue getting up to speed or stopping, you need to know before you bring it to me for an inspection. Check the cruse control and other options installed. Lastly anyone that rides with you, have them shut up and be quiet. Jabbering on can pull your attention away from what the test drive is for, finding flaws. Better yet, go drive the vehicle by your self.
4- Let the engine idle for 20 min with the A/C on max air. This helps check for A/C issues or poor cooling at the ducts. Take a thermometer with you so you can see what the duct temp is, your hand is not an accurate guide. Any temp higher than 58 degrees on max air settings is no good.
5- After the 20 minuet idling, give the throttle a good brisk snap, rev the engine up over 4k RPM’s and check to see if any blue smoke kicks out the tail pipe. Blue smoke indicates engine wear. The engine has not been serviced correctly or its worn out.
6- If all of the above things check out good. Its time to bring the vehicle to a repair shop for a full inspection of all hidden factors and a ASE tech to shake it down. At tony’s Service Center we charge for the inspection, but its worth the money and time you will spend.
2010 Dodge Challenger R/T 5.7L HEMI with 28,000 miles on it. All service intervals have been over looked. It has been lowered and has non factory wheels. It rides hard, like a typical lowered car. It has aftermarket muffler’s and they drone very hard at 2000 RPM’s. The trans fluid is black and it has a clicking noise at the rear. Overall it’s in need. It is clean-looking on the outside. The inside is showing wear. This car is not in excellent condition, but this is what a typical used car will look like.
I have many clients that went out 5 years ago and bought new cars. Now that new car is aging and needs repairs. The Mustang below is only 6 years old and it’s already wearing out. Just because you buy a new car, you are not off the hook for maintenance.
2012 Mustang, out of warranty and in need of repairs. It has 157,000 miles on it and it’s worn out. The engine has been overheated, it burns and leaks oil, plus the front suspension is noisy over bumps.
Repairs will be needed to keep your car working correctly. Wear and tear from heavy use will bring you back to the repair shop. Worse yet, what if you breakdown and have to be towed in for repairs.
Warranty or no warranty, regular servicing and breakdown repairs are going to happen.
The first thing I tell clients is to have an emergency repair fund stashed away. I have cash stashed in my saving just for this type of thing. I have been stuck out-of-town before and cash is king.
The second thing I tell clients is to have a AAA gold card. The gold card is great if you travel out-of-town and need a tow. The gold card gives you all the road side assistance that you get from a normal card, but your free towing is now 100 miles vs 5 miles.
The VW on the left is being towed away today because it needs an engine replaced at $6,200. The VW on the right was just purchased by a client that did not want to overhaul an A/C system on a 10-year-old Honda CRV. Both VW’s are 2015 models and they both have around 40,000 miles on them.
Even if your car is brand new, you should get it serviced before any big trip out-of-town.
The idea is to prevent a breakdown. I have seen brand new cars with major flaws that need repairs.
ASE tech’s will notice wear and age issues that could cause a breakdown way before they become a failure on the road.
One week before you travel, take your car in for service. Even if you’re not due for service, get your car looked at before you hit the road. If your car has any repairs that are needed, the repair shop has time to get them completed before you need to leave town.
2014 Nissan Rogue, with 52,000 miles on the clock. This one came in on the hook. An overheated cooling systems caused an engine failure. Leaks like this can be repaired way before they become a failure on the road.
If you have an older car and it’s too worn out to leave town. Rent a car for your trip. It’s less expensive to rent a car for the weekend than it is to be broken down on the road waiting for a tow truck.
This belt is from a 4-year-old car with 57,000 miles on it. I was installing a new alternator and I advised replacing the belt while it was off. The belts cost was $34.00. The client said no to replacing it. Oddly they let a friend use the car for a week and the belt came apart, allowing the engine to over heat. The driver drove the car till it stopped. The engine was destroyed.
Todays car owners are spoiled by technology. 25 years ago most of the cars on the road visited the repair shop 45% more often than todays cars. Advancements in how cars are built is one reason why they seem to last longer. Service intervals are longer and many parts last a lot longer. 25 years ago most cars needed a tune up every 24,000 miles. Today most cars don’t need a tune up till 100,000 miles.
Todays cars do last longer and they do cost more to repair. Belts and hoses look the same as they did 25 years ago, but now they cost 40% more to replace. Brakes are bigger, tires have changed and A/C systems costs are double what they use to be. When the parts fail, they fail big. The change in overall costs is due to the extra technology to run all the cool gadgets.
A hybrid car looks very cool in the show room, but jump forward 10 years when you have to replace a battery pack at $3,200. Turbo charged engines cost big with any failure. Cylinder canceling engines like some of the GM V8’s and now it’s new turbo 2.7L 4 cylinder engine they will be putting in full size trucks in 2019 cost a small fortune to fix when they fail.
Many failures will happen from age and normal use. Other failures will happen from bad advice and a failure to follow service intervals. Below is an image of what happens when the wrong parts are used to save money. Using the wrong parts can cost you more later.
This is what happens when budget copper spark plugs are used in place of double platinum plugs. Copper plugs cost $2.59 each. double platinum plugs cost $9.67 each. Times 4 on a 4 cyl engine. The plug savings caused 2 coils to fail plus a tow. This was done by a shop just 1 mile away from my shop. The correct repairs cost 3 time what the original tune up did, plus an 18 mile tow.
I have over 4 dozen clients that “ignore” the service intervals on their cars. When they have to be towed in and whine about the tow. I just tell them that better service intervals could have prevented the failure.
98% of the time I am 100% right. 3 Service intervals a year will go a long way to prevent breakdowns on the road.
Just because it’s new does not insure you will not have a breakdown. Let us help you keep that new car new or make your old car feel new again.
The #8 fuse supports many devices. The starter, fuel pump, body control, engine control, ignition switch and 10 more devices. Knowing the product, I first look at the fuel pump, starter motor and starter solenoid. A bad starter solenoid or a faulty starter motor will cause a large amp load on the #8 fuse via the starter relay. 
The #8 fuse is only a 20 amp fuse. The starter and fuel pump relays are the highest loads placed on the #8 fuse.
The starter relay will normally draw 11 amps under normal conditions. When the starter relay first engages the amp spike can reach 22 amps, after the initial spike. It will take about 11 amps to hold the starter solenoid on. The amp spike is normal and the 20 amp 
fuse can handle a quick amp spike, just not a sustained load of 22 amps or more. If the starter solenoid is faulty, it causes more amps to flow through the relay. It’s a domino effect, One fault, will cause a failure in a secondary component.
Looking at how power flows through the circuits will shorten the time it takes to find out what device caused the fuse to fail. I start with devices that draw high amps.
The fuel pump relay will normally draw 2.5 to 3.8 amps under normal operation. When the pump first spins up. The amp spike is around 8 amps, then it drops under 4 amps to keep it running. The normal amp current for a fuel pump in good condition is 2.8 to 3.5 amps.
All load devices will have an amp spike when they first start
up. That is normal for all devices that use electricity. Your home, car or any type of equipment that uses electricity to make devices, like lights, relays or motors work, will draw amps of current when switched on.
When a working load doubles or triples due to an electrical fault, the fuse will do it’s job and fail.
A fuse keeps the wiring from being over loaded, getting hot and causing a fire. I have seen some nasty wire fires from car owners doing a repair or lazy repair tech’s that try to MacGyver a failure to get them by.
The tin foil trick, to jump around a bad fuse has caused many car fires. In many cases, a short cut repair will fail quickly or cause more damage. It’s a risk you take when you do a MacGyver repair.
Replacing the starter solved the clients issue.
At Tony’s we see vehicles in all states of disrepair. A new car will only need basic services and 2 to 5-year-old cars will need bigger repairs as parts wears out. The cars I 
am talking about are the cars over 10 to 25 years of age and still look nice inside and out.
Just because a repair may be larger than the value of the car is no reason to give up and sell your car. I hear this phrase at least once a day. My car is not worth that. If you have a car that “blue books” at $4,000 and the car needs an AC over haul that may cost $1,800. The repair is worth doing, if your car is in great condition.
If the same $4,000 car needs an engine at $5,100. The car is still worth repairing, but only if the car has been correctly maintained. The car must be in “great condition”. “No accident damage”, good paint, interior is clean plus everything works correctly and you love your car.
In many cases if you go out car shopping you will buy a car that is over $12,000 and you will get a loan to buy the car and your license tags will cost more. Plus your insurance will go up.
It’s less expensive to repair the car you already own. Buying a new car is the same as fixing the car you already own. Now you are making payments vs a repair bill. You must be honest with your self, if you are a person that just does not care for your car. Your car will wear out and fall apart.
The owner of the car is the reason a car is in good or bad condition, not the repair garage. 
Let’s face it, some people don’t care about anything unless it’s broken. Preventative repairs and basic maintenance is not important, but a cat video on YouTube will have front row attention. If properly cared for 80% of cars sold would last 15 years or more. It’s up to the owner to care about keeping it in good condition.
2005 Dodge Neon, yes it has road rash, but it’s fixable. This car needs a $390 dollar repair. Any repair that is less than a monthly payment is worth doing.
The average “break down repair” at Tony’s is around $650.00. With an emergency repair fund of $1,000 dollars, a $650.00 dollar repair is no big deal. My repair fund is $2,000. I 
have 2 cars and a service van. If all 3 need minor repairs in the same month, I should be ok.
If you have more than one car you should “add $500.00 dollars for each additional car”. If you have an SUV or European brand, double the amount in the fund.
It’s a fact, it is less expensive to fix a good used car than go and buy a new one.
You spent hours, if not days searching for the car you want. Maybe it’s a hot rod, a classic, a sports car, or just a daily driver to take you to work every day. Why do you want to spend time and money only to get cheated? I know I would be upset if someone sold me a pile of shit. The car is a 1956 Ford Fairlane. In its day, it was a very good car. 
The Fairlane Victoria sold for 2,249 in 1956, but by todays inflation % it would be like buying a car for 19,844 
Finding a classic that is in good condition takes lots of work. When you find the one you like, you need to get it inspected before buy it. The rule is, once you buy it, it’s your problem now. Sellers do not have to tell you a thing, they are not lying to you, they just don’t tell you what they know about the car they are selling. 
Holding back information is not a crime, but it should be. An inspection is the only way to protect you and your hard-earned money.
An inspection at Tony’s is around $150.00 for a modern car and $300.00 for a classic. It always takes longer to check out an older car because most classics have been rebuilt several times and may have hidden damage. 
Just because it looks fabulous on the outside does not indicate it’s in good shape underneath the sheet metal. Rust, mechanical wear, electrical faults and body repairs that did not get the attention they needed during the restoration are very common, Flawless paint is a red flag, it may be pretty on the outside, but what is underneath all that paint? This 56 Fairlane was in distress years ago, now it’s a mess of body filler and crap repairs on top of more crap repairs. The body is dead, all the mounting points on the right side are rotten. 
The engine runs OK but the transmission makes noise and the gear shift linkage is worn out to the point it is hard to get from one gear to the next. The doors and hood don’t close correctly and you have to slam the driver’s door to get it to latch. The brakes are a mess too, it’s unsafe to drive. 
The car needs so much work that it’s hard to find a starting point. Getting your car inspected by a certified mechanic with a written evaluation gives you power to negotiate a lower price or pass on the buy all together and keep looking for a good car to spend your money on. So it’s shiny with pretty paint and tons of chrome, but if you can’t drive it, what is the point of buying it in the first place. It does not matter who you buy from, get it inspected…
Many times a year I have vehicle owners drive in and ask us to look at their fuses. A fuse does not fail just because it’s old. They fail due to the load placed on them. 
Over loading a circuit with aftermarket equipment is the most common reason for a fuse to fail “blow out” In a home, you have 
circuit breakers that protect each circuit within the home.
Fuses in a vehicle do the same job of protecting the electrical circuit, but if they fail you must remove the bad fuse and install a new one in the fuse box. Before you install a new fuse, its important to check to see why the fuse failed.
(What caused the fuse to fail) Just installing a fuse without looking for the reason it failed is not going to fix the problem. The second most common reason we see fuses fail is due to coins or metallic junk getting into the 12V aux/lighter socket. 
I have found ear rings, small tokens, and paper clips stuck in the 12V power sockets. A direct short to ground will cause a fuse to fail instantly. 
Once you remove the junk from the socket the fuse can be replaced. At our service desk we offer free 12V socket to USB power adapters to plug into the open 12V sockets, just to prevent issues like junk or coins from getting into the socket and shorting the terminals in the socket
.
A 110V inverter to power a laptop can over load an accessory fuse circuit. 
You do not want to use an inverter larger than 150 watts on a 15 amp fused circuit. Most basic 12V sockets only have a 15 amp fuse to power the socket, and its easy to pop a fuse with an inverter, cell phone, and GPS navigation all plugged in at the same time.
HeyAnthonyAz.com – It’s all good under the hood.
98% of the vehicles today use plastic head light housings with plastic lenses, no glass lenses anymore. As the clear plastic lens age, the protective UV coating on the plastic goes bad and starts to fade or frost over. Some plastic head light housing do not have a protective film, and they show age within 3 to 5 years from new. 
We re-finish plastic head light lenses all the time.
Not all lenses can be saved. Rock pits, scratches, and plastic cracking can not be fixed with sanding if it’s too deep into the plastic surface. 20% of the head lamp housings I run across in my shop have major damage and need to be replaced.
Replacing factory head light housings with quality aftermarket units is not super expensive, but the labor to change out the light housing could make replacement out of the question for some budgets. 
The process of refinishing the plastic lens is fairly simple, and many parts stores sell DIY kits to sand, polish and protect the plastics.
Doing it your self or paying a repair shop to do this procedure will make your car look newer, and maybe influence you to keep your car vs buying a new one. Looks are everything, and the clients comment right away that it looks like they have a new car again. The second big plus to cleaning and polishing the lenses is your head lights will project farther down the road, You can see better at night.
So here it is in a nut shell, we clean the plastics, wet sand the imperfections out of the surface. Then use a 2 step polishing compound to restore the clear as glass look. Last step is a double coating of wax. Regular car war works fine for this.
Keeping things looking clear depends on the owner washing and re-waxing the lenses, but we can also do that for the client when they are in for an oil change.
Filters protect your car from harmful debris that can cause damage to internal moving parts. The engine, and transmission need service regularly to keep them alive and happy. So what about you, the driver? Back in the mid 80’s some European car manufactures started adding air filters to the A/C system. Mercedes-Benz called it a particulate filter and it protected the A/C evaporator core from getting contaminated with hair, lint, leaves, and other nasty things that could get pulled into the air intake of the A/C system. It also protected the inside of the car from dust and oder. Most of all, the clean air was a benefit to the driver. European cars started using “Cabin Air Filters” first, around the mid 80’s. In the late 90’s I started to see them in high-end Japanese cars, and by the mid 2000’s almost all cars had some type of Air Filter added to the A/C system. The filter works great till, till it looks like the one in the picture. A filter can only do its job if it can catch and hold the dirt. This filter is past its way past its prime. looking at it, you might think it’s very old, but it’s only 3 years old, but the car is only used in town and in 3 years has only driven 7,000 miles.
Most car manufactures today list a 1 year or 15,000 mile interval for A/C Cabin Filters. Many car owners do not follow the recommended filter intervals. It’s hard enough to get clients to do regular oil changes much less service the A/C filter on schedule.
I have removed filters that had so much junk in them that they have collapsed in-ward and the A/C system is trying to suck them into the air intake. Blower motor failures can occur due to a plugged Cabin Air Filter. Low duct air flow can happen due to a dirty filter. Poor cooling and compressor failure can also occur because the filter is plugged up with dirt.
The filter to the right is from a Toyota. The owner did not know that the car had a filter. It was an original filter. This filter is only 2 years old, and is nasty! The air flow from the duct was almost nothing, even on a high-speed. Changing the filters and servicing your car regularly is part of owning a car. Planning for repairs and preventative maintenance keeps your car happy and reliable. No one likes to tow their car to a repair shop, much less shell out money to repair something major, when you could have prevented the break down all together with a well visit to the car doctor.
It’s all good under the hood. HeyAnthonyAz.com
