Montpelier Auto Repair

If you own a vehicle with a healthy engine, a strong transmission, a beefy suspension and great brakes, but your tires don’t grip the road properly, then you have no traction and no control. It is the tires that determine the type of traction, grip and control that you have with your car. If you add up the amount you paid for the vehicle + the cost of car insurance + the maintenance and repairs you have in the car + the new stereo you bought for it, the cost of good tires may be one of the most economical purchases you can make. To help illustrate how important tire traction is, I’d like you take a sheet of paper 8½x11 and fold it length wise, then width wise. This is approximately the size of the contact patch of each tire. The traction of these tires must handle the job of starting, accelerating, steering and stopping – a big job for a small amount of rubber rolling on the ground. The compounds that make up a tire vary quite a bit depending on what ... read more

Once a year we take our bodies to our primary care physician to make sure we are still healthy. We are prodded and poked and looked over from head to toe. They take some of our fluids and test them to make sure there are no surprises. Sometimes we are hooked up to machines to see what is going on inside. If we have noticed any weird lumps, bumps, squeaks or rattles, now is the time to ask questions. It is best to find out ASAP what is going wrong so that it can be righted before it becomes critical to our health and well being. Like our bodies, our automobiles need to be looked at on a regular basis to make sure that everything is safe and sound. Like the physician, the auto technician prods and pokes, hooks your car up to machines, checks out the fluids, and checks out any weird lumps, bumps, squeaks and rattles. Just like our bodies, if problems are found sooner than later, accidents are prevented, and fixes are cheaper. Vehicles are misdiagnosed all the ... read more

I’m putting on my Women’s Board Hat when I tell you that it’s National Car Care Month & time to get your vehicle ready for winter. Winterizing your car is essential to getting through a Vermont winter with no problems! Here a the 8 Steps to Getting Your Car Ready for Winter. 1. Clean your vehicle inside and out. Getting your vehicle washed and waxed helps protect the paint surfaces from snowy bombardments, and it will also make snow and ice easier to brush off. Since you will be sitting in your car with the windows up for the next six months do yourself a favor and give your car a thorough cleaning ASAP. To prevent that stale air / locker room smell, consider replacing your cabin air filter. It’s also a great idea to take out your carpeted floor mats and replace them with a set of water-resistant rubber mats. 2. Make sure you can see. A winter s ... read more

Gasoline prices are on the rise again. With political turmoil and natural disasters happening all over the world, I don’t see the price of gasoline dropping in the near future, if ever again. You may not have control of increased fuel prices, but you do have control of getting better fuel mileage on your existing vehicle. By following these steps, you can add miles to every gallon with your coupe, sedan, wagon, SUV, minivan, pickup truck, or hybrid. (More on hybrids below). Slow Down! Each mph driven over 60 will cost an additional 10 cents per gallon. Rapid acceleration and hard braking can lower your gas mileage by 33% on the highway and 5% in the city driving Avoid excessive idling! You get zero miles per gallon when the car it just sitting there idling away (unless you drive a hybrid). Minimize air conditioning! In city driving ... read more

Correct Weight = 57 lbs 1st place: A FREE Club Card worth $517.99 of automotive discounts 53.25 lbs / Barb Colf 2nd place: a $50.00 Gift Certificate to The Black Door Bar & Bistro in Montpelier. 53 lbs / Anthony Otis

When Jody Devere, the President of AskPatty.com (the premier automotive site for women) called and asked if I wanted to go to Akron, Ohio in July to review Goodyear’s new Assurance TripleTred All-Season tire I told her I would love to, and did my happy dance around the shop! Now you may be asking yourself, why would anyone get so excited to go to Akron, Ohio in July to check out a new tire. Well, the simple answer is that I love anything car related, especially tires. I sincerely feel that tires are one of the most important parts of your vehicle. They determine if your car can safely stop, start, turn and swerve. Think about this, you can be driving a car with a fresh tune-up, new brakes, four wheel drive, traction control, and every other automotive widget known to mankind, but if your tires are worn out, you could easily get into an accident. Please Rem ... read more

Driving a Hybrid Vehicle in Vermont causes unique problems, which are not explained in the owner’s manual.*Cabin Air Filter: If the cabin air filter is clogged in a hybrid, the high voltage battery is cooled less. This takes life out of the big expensive battery and reduces the car’s power and fuel economy. And, just like a plugged vacuum cleaner, a cabin air filter with restricted air flow can’t suck up the dirt. old pads and new pads *Brakes: Hybrid vehicles have a regenerative braking system. This means that the conventional brakes only work when going 5 mph or less. Vermont has an excess of moisture and salt on our roads that cause brakes to rust and because the conventional brakes don’t get used much, they never build up the heat that helps to burn off the rust. Many Vermont hybrid owners are driving around with the bra ... read more

Do you own a car? Is it registered in Vermont? Did you know that Vermont requires you to take your vehicle to a State Licensed Inspection Station once a year for a safety and emissions inspection? Interestingly this is not a national requirement. Each state government is free to decide whether to require a safety inspection as well as the specifics of what the requirements are to pass that state’s inspection. In 1990 Congress passed federal vehicle emissions regulations called The Clean Air Act. States were told to implement vehicle emissions testing programs to make sure vehicles are in compliance with the EPA standard, but again, programs vary from state to state, region, and even by metropolitan areas. Some states have state-operated garages that only do inspections. Other states, including Vermont, have the inspections done by licensed repair shops and dealership service departments. Only about 18 states still have mandatory vehicle inspe ... read more

My Dear Clients,My Friend Greg Buckley sent this to me, and I wanted to share it with you! By now all of us are awe struck and saddened by the horrible earthquake and tsunami that the people of Japan have recently suffered. There are no words to describe what a tragedy like this can mean to the lives of the thousands living in the heart of the stricken area or the families that are watching, waiting and praying from afar. The American Red Cross is actively taking donations online to support the rescue mission. You can click here for more information. http://www.redcross.org/The Aftershocks For The Auto Industry And You As much as we should focus on the human element of such a cat ... read more

It’s been a long, cold snowy winter so far and we still have March and April to get through. This time of year seems to be hard for many folks. I wish I had enough money to close the shop for a week and take my staff to somewhere sunny and warm. But since I don’t, we have been busy doing shop-projects. This years winter project has been, re-organizing the parts room. Thanks to one of our part vendors we received a bunch of shelving. We are organizing a bunch of the parts that we stock for your cars. We have 3 shelves filled and have 1½ left to fill. I love organizing things and getting rid of clutter, and this has been a fabulous change in my world! I also love it that we now have room in the parts room to store all our specialized machines to keep them clean! My next project is to re-organize all the shelves and cupboards in the shop