Tag Archives: pontiac

Just stop in!

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We are your friendly Neighborhood Garage, just stop in.

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.

Need an oil change today?

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

 

 

Cheaper to keep her…

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Repair the car you own, it’s cheaper.

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.

Repair it!

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.

A “neglected” car is not worth repairing, junk it and move on

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.

 

Everyone needs a $1,000 Emergency car fund.

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.

Heyanthonyaz.com

 

Yep, it’s broken; Plastics…

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Plastics, they don’t last forever.

Unhappy owners with broken cars arrive at my shop every month, and the owners just do not understand why the car has broken down. Well, if you drive it, it will wear out…..

Todays autos use lot’s of plastics. Auto makers have always used plastic parts, but in todays cars and trucks plastic parts are used for so many things, it can be frustrating when parts don’t last because they are made of plastic.wp-image-33241149jpg.jpg

Today I have a Nissan Frontier in the shop with a coolant leak at a plastic fitting on the heater core. This is a common thing on a vehicle that is 10 years old or older.

The hard part is informing the client that the engine is bad, because it over heated, due to a plastic part that failed. Using plastics to make a car lighter, and get better emissions is great, but at what cost to the client. I would rather have all cooling system parts made from metal. The auto maker makes the parts out of plastic because it’s cheaper to manufacture.

So what do they care if the part fails and the engine goes bad. That’s why they make new cars anyway.

Fix it right, fix it once. HeyAnthonyAz.com

FREE Oil Change Monthly Drawing at Tony’s

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ FREE OIL CHANGE @ TONY’S ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It’s time to change the oil!

Enter to win! Win a free oil change, enter your information @ Tony’s contact page.

Enter your contact information on Tony’s contact page & in the message box type “Free oil change monthly drawing” and include the make, model and year of your car.

You will be automatically entered into the drawing for the next months free oil change drawing. Enter as often as you like. The winner of the free oil change will be contacted by Tony’s at the end of each drawing month. The free oil change offer will be running till December 2015

The oil change includes, up to 5 qt’s of 10w30 synthetic blend oil, an oil filter, and under hood fluid top off’s, plus a vehicle safety inspection. This is a $30.00 value at our regular price & a great saving if you win it for free. So enter today, it’s easy and free.

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HeyAnthonyAZ.com 2014 ~ It’s all good under the hood…

Rent a car for your small trip.

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Ryan has a 9-year-old Pontiac G6 GT with 218,000 miles. The car is not road ready. It is not ready to take an 800 mile trip at high speeds. Taking a long road trip in a car that needs many repairs and could leave you stranded at the side of the road.

Waiting for a tow truck is no fun.

Ryan is heading out-of-town for a 4 day weekend in Las Vegas. Renting a car is a great idea for a small weekend trip. Ryan’s car needs 1,800.00 of basic mechanical repairs. Plus his vehicle also needs tires. New tires will set Ryan back another 1000.00 bucks.

Ryan has been a client for many years and I did not want to see Ryan have issues out on the road.

Without a doubt, Ryan’s car needs many repairs, but what else could fail on a long road trip? It’s hard to know what could go wrong out on the road.

We offered Ryan a rental with an upgrade to a Lincoln for his long trip. Ryan is going to travel in style and his G6 GT is going to be getting the repairs it has needed for many months. When Ryan gets back to town his car will be ready to go.

The idea is to let the rental car take the beating. Driving out-of-town at high speeds, up hills with the AC cranked on high is a lot of stress for any car, so let the rental take the beating and save your ride for the easy in-town driving.

It’s all good under the hood, heyanthonyaz.com 2014

 

Adjust it till it fits?

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Hack Jobs Happen…

I see some crazy short cut repairs (hack jobs). “Hack jobs” by owners, shade tree mechanics and approved auto repair shops. Then I wonder why, why try, why risk a comeback. Why take the short cut in the first place. Why risk loosing a client when the hack job fails, leaving the vehicle owner stranded on the side of the road.

A hack job will fail, it’s a sub-standard repair.

 

Today I had an odd repair issue pop into the shop. Ronda had a fuel pump replaced on her 1995 Chevy Suburban about 30 days ago in Sedona Arizona. The truck has a 5.7 TBI fuel injected engine. (Throttle Body Injection System) Ronda only had one issue with the repair, the fuel economy was reduced by 30 to 40% and this was noticed right after the pump was installed. The shop that installed the pump had double checked the fuel system, and said nothing was wrong.

Ronda had moved to Sedona last year.

The client (Ronda) use to live right around the corner from our shop, but had moved to Sedona in 2013. Ronda happened to be in the valley for some doctors visits, so Ronda stopped in to see if we had time to look at this issue.

Testing showed the fuel system was running too rich. The scan tool (a computer that talks to the car’s computer) showed that the PCM (the car’s computer) was subtracting a lot of fuel. The engine computer uses a pair of fuel trim ratio numbers to display fuel system compensation (larger number = more fuel added to the engine Or a smaller number = less fuel, fuel reduced to the engine). A repair technician can view the fuel trim numbers “live” as they update (in real-time) and watch how the system is operating, rich, lean or normal.

Next I attached a gauge used to test fuel pressure to the engine’s fuel system. The fuel pressure gauge showed that the fuel system pressure was around 19 PSI of pressure. (Why?) The TBI system specification is 9 to 12 PSI. So why was the PSI so high?

I suspected it had the wrong fuel pump installed. So, I removed the fuel pump and found a big mess. What I found was a major issue, the person that did the repairs, must have had a huge loss of reasoning. The part was clearly the wrong part for the truck. When I entered the pump part number into a parts jobber, part interchange system. I discovered the part was the wrong pump for the truck.

The shop decided to adjust the wrong part till it would fit in the tank. But wait, that’s not all. The pump was for a 1996 5.7 MPI engine. (Multi Port Injection System) not a 1995 5.7 TBI system. The 1996 MPI system runs at 60 to 66 PSI. This is clearly too much pressure for the system to handle. To bleed off the high PSI. The shop that made the repairs, had removed the hose clamp to the PSI fuel coupling hose that connects the fuel pumps outlet pipe to the metal pipe going out to the engine’s fuel injector’s. Plus the old fuel pump harness was installed on the new pump, and the electrical connector had a broken retaining clip.

The adjustments and compromises should have never happened, but they did.

Just buy the correct part, and if the part arrives wrong, get the correct part. The correct part was available in Flagstaff, less than a 2 hour round trip from Sedona. The client had already waited 5 days, what was one more day to get the right part.

We fixed the truck and it is running correctly, with the correct part. The client is happy and the mileage is back to normal. Plus Ronda will be bringing her truck to us when ever she is in town every 3 to 4 months.

Keeping up on the needs of an older vehicle may seem costly, but if you do the math. The right older vehicle can be cost-effective in the long run. Every vehicle needs repairs someday, new or old.

It’s all good under the hood, heyanthonyaz.com 2014

www.carfax.com How accurate is the service?

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Buying a used car can drain your savings, if you buy the wrong one.

In the last 10 months I have preformed 35 pre-purchase inspections, 27 cars and 8 trucks. Every vehicle had a clean carfax report. 5 of the cars and 1 of the trucks had un-reported major accident damage. They all looked fine on the outside, looking good, like nothing was wrong.

Carfax is only as good as the people who report the accident damage.

If the vehicle owner has accident repairs fixed for cash, under the table, by a discount shop. The accident damage will never be reported to carfax.

This type of repair may be hidden from view and the only thing you can do, is to make sure you do not buy any vehicle without an inspection. If the vehicle owner does not want you to take it and have it inspected, do not buy it!

You work hard for your money and it would be horrible to find big dollar repairs after you just paid a big chunk of money for what you thought was a nice used car.

Even if the vehicle has a clean carfax report and a good story about why the owner is selling the car. Get all the facts, get it into a shop for a full inspection!

The money you spend for the inspection will give you peace of mind. No one wants to buy a lemon.

It’s all good under the hood. www.HeyAnthonyAz.com 2014

Tony’s Service Center 5362 North 16th St. Phoenix, AZ 85016

4 months or 4000 miles

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Oil Change Interval

A new car will not need as much attention as a car with 120,000 miles, but new cars will have service needs too. Just because its new is not a reason to over look good service habits.

The simple method for regular oil changes; New vehicles, up to 3 years of age or 40,000 miles, will mostly need basic services, oil changes, fluid top off’s and tire rotations. Follow the normal service intervals in the owners hand book, and you will be doing great.

Regular motor oil Intervals can range from 3,500 to 7,500 miles. Full synthetic oil services can range from 7,500 to 15,0000 mile intervals.

Some repair shops, like Tony’s Service Center, have switched to Heavy Duty blended motor oils for our oil change packages.

What is a blend? It’s a mix of regular motor oil and synthetic oil. It’s a better product, and it protects your engine better than a regular motor oil.

All new vehicles sold, come with a owners hand book.

Most owners do not read it cover to cover, its boring stuff. In the back of the book, it lists your service and maintenance needs from 0 miles to 120,000. Servicing intervals are-listed two ways. Normal service and Severe service, most cars will fall into the Normal service area.

Life after 40, “the honey-moon is over.”

Vehicles older than 3 years or with 40,000 to 120,000 miles; Ok, parts are starting to wear out. Belts, Hoses, Brakes, Batteries and Tires are the most common repair needs.

Major fluids will need replacement services, and you will still have basic oil changes to do, so continue to follow the normal service intervals in your vehicle hand book. Your vehicle is starting to show its age. Prompt maintenance and repairs will prevent break downs…

NOTE; Fluid servicing is a big part of a vehicles long life. No fluids are life time. Some car makers will say they have life time fluids. GM found out painfully, that Dex-Cool, a life time coolant, was a very bad idea. “No fluids last the life of the vehicle.”

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My car only has 33,000 miles on it…

Just because your vehicle has 33,000 miles on it, does not indicate that it’s in new condition. A 12-year-old car that has 33,000 miles on it, will still need service just like a car that has 120,000 miles on it. ( It’s all about ) “Time in Service”

Vehicles over 8 years old or 120,000 and up; It’s time to step up the service intervals to severe service. Why? The vehicle is getting older and will need more services to keep it in top condition. “More repairs, more services, more love.”

How does regular servicing prevent break downs?

Having a trusted repair shop looking at your vehicle is essential to keeping your vehicle in top condition. Jumping from shop to shop is no good.

Having the same shop looking at your car will allow them to watch your needs. Loyalty will help the shop give you advice that is correct for your needs. Plus your service advisor can show you how to budget for future repairs.

It’s all good under the hood. HeyAnthonyAz.com 2014

 

 

Stop!

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*** If your engine is over heating, STOP! ***

Today I had a vehicle Towed in from the other side of town. The client lives near my shop, but works 30 miles away. The car had over heated on his way to work. He was only 7 minuets away from work, so the client continued to drive the car to work.

If you are driving along and the “red over heating light turns on” or you see the gauge in the RED! ***Stop the car safely and turn off the engine.***

Do not continue to drive the vehicle!

The engine has just over heated! shut down the engine to prevent over heating damage!!!

When an engine is over heating, it can cause major damage to the aluminum parts inside the engine.

Many of todays engines have lots aluminum parts. Aluminum parts are strong as long as they do not get too hot.

When aluminum parts gets super hot, the aluminum will expand a lot. Aluminum parts can crack as they cool back down from being over heated.

The other thing that happens when the aluminum parts expand, is the gaskets sealing the engine can be crushed or compressed during the over heating. When the engine cools down it can start leaking from the damaged gaskets.

Engine over heating can also cause big issues with plastic parts bolted to the engine, and plastic radiators.

Running an engine just a couple of extra minuets, can destroy an engine quickly. Many of todays newer vehicles have engines that can cost up to 6,000.00 just for an engine.

That is big money!

If the gauge is in the red or the red engine light is on, shut the engine off ASAP. Stop and call a Tow truck.

A Tow into the shop for repairs is nothing compared to an engine replacement.

My client was not happy, the engine was damaged from the over heating. Next week we will be installing a new engine.

It’s all good under the hood. HeyAnthonyAz.com 2014

K & N Air Filters = A Dirty “MAF”

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If you have seen any type of auto racing, than you may have seen the K & N air filter stickers on some of the race cars.

K & N air filters work great for high performance motor sports, water craft and off-road vehicles, but they are not good to use on a regular engine. Many engines today use a “MAF” sensor (Mass Air Flow Sensor) to measure incoming air going into the engine. The engine computer uses the data from the MAF sensor to adjust engine timing, fuel injection, and transmission shift points.

K & N air filters may improve engine output only by a small percentage. The way K & N does this, is by using a less restrictive woven mesh. The woven mesh is coated with a light spray of oil. The oil is used to help trap dirt in the mesh. When an engine is running, it is drawing air past the oil coated mesh. Then the oily air flows past the MAF sensor, coating the sensor in a fine oil. The fine oil attracts dirt and contaminates the MAF sensor element, just like the sensor in the video above.

Only OE quality filters should be used with a MAF systems. A quality filter will prevent the sensor from getting all clogged up with dirt. The video shows me cleaning a GM MAF sensor gently with a Q-tip dipped in alcohol. The client thought they needed a tune up. The  car was running poorly and pinging, but the computer had no code and no check engine light on.

Yes, the engine needed service, but the heart of the poor operation was a very dirty MAF sensor due to an oil soaked K & N oil filter.

It’s all good under the hood. Anthony Xavier ASE Master Technician

copyright: All rights reserved @ HeyAnthonyAZ.com 2014