The car was towed in and we confirmed the wheels didn’t turn. Unlike the other cases where the steering wheel wouldn’t turn this one did and it made a significant amount of noise; scraping, banging and grinding. We got the car on the lift and wow!; the frame was all rotted away and the rack wasn’t attached to it anymore. The rack was pretty beat up & leaking from scraping the back of the engine & the frame but it worked. Instead of the wheels turning when the steering wheel was turned; the wheels were staying still and the steering rack was moving from side to side. This car needed a front sub-frame and a steering rack.

If this had failed while driving the result could have been disastrous. If your car doesn’t sound right, doesn’t steer quite right, or feels different than it used to; have it checked as soon as possible for your own safety and the safety of everyone else on the road.

Yesterday I ended up several cars back behind an SUV that was doing 10 mph below the speed limit. There weren’t any passing zones and this went on for miles. Finally the road widened to 2 lanes. As I passed the SUV I looked over to see the driver driving with their left foot on the dash board, both hands at 12 o’clock on the steering wheel texting on a cell phone with a slide out keyboard, and holding a lit cigarette! I’ve seen driver’s at 60 mph using the rear view mirror to put on make up, eating breakfast – lunch & dinner, reading the newspaper, and what appeared to be correcting test papers – to name a few. But this driver takes the cake; a true multitasker.

It’s always surprising to hear the traffic report on a clear sunny afternoon; accident, rollover, accident, accident… It’s not the weather so why are there so many accidents? Distracted driving has to be part of the answer.

The dictionary defines accident as

1. an undesirable or unfortunate happening that occurs unintentionally and usually results in harm, injury, damage, or loss; casualty; mishap: automobile accidents.
2. any event that happens unexpectedly, without a deliberate plan or cause.

We all know distracted driving causes accidents; so if you eat, text or do something else while driving is it really an accident or unintentional? Maybe we should stop using the word accident for these types of crashes, it makes it sound like no one is at fault. In most accidents someone is at fault; either driving distracted, driving to fast, driving like a moron or ignoring traffic laws.

To those who think they can multitask while driving; are you sure you’ve never drifted into the other lane or done something esle that caused an accident behind you – that you don’t even know about?

Please remind your family and friends that it’s not safe to drive while distracted.

The fact is 99% of the cars on the road have an electric fuel pump. The pump is inside the fuel tank. You may think an electric motor in a tank of gas doesn’t sound very safe. Don’t worry it is very safe. There isn’t much oxygen in the gas tank, even when it’s empty, in fact not enough oxygen for it to burn or explode.

The reason we recommend keeping it over 1/4 tank is the gasoline is the coolant that cools the fuel pump. An electric motor makes heat. That heat causes wear and premature failure if it’s not dissipated.  Below a 1/4 of a tank the pump isn’t fully submerge and the small amount fuel in the tank actually warms up and doesn’t effectively dissipate the heat.

That’s why we recommend keeping it over a 1/4 full;  if you don’t, we’ll gladly replace your fuel pump when it prematurely fails.

Right to Repair Legislation has been defeated in the 23 (I believe it’s 23) other states that filed it. This type of legislation probably isn’t necessary and if it is it belongs on a country wide federal level. If the manufacturer has to do something different in Massachusetts it will cost you more to buy that car in Massachusetts, it’s basic economics.

This bill has been spearheaded by the discount auto part chains. They deny claims that the information they will get from the bill will make it easier for them to make knock of parts overseas and that they are funding it to help the independent shops. All I can tell you for sure is we don’t have a problem, so follow the money and reach your own decision.

I’ve talked to people from the MA Right to Repair Coalition. In my opinion they are extremely rude. About every other day I get a call from them. The called starts in with we need you to call your legislator and urge them to pass this. My answer is always the same, ” Why would I want to do that, we don’t support it?” They immediately hang up – click. If this bill were at all legitimate I’d expect to hear something like ” but you’re a shop, don’t you have a problem getting information? This is not a bill or group I want to support.

We urge you to oppose this legislation and let your Representatives and Senators know you oppose it. You can find more information about the bill and a simple way to email your legislators at

http://capwiz.com/asashop/issues/alert/?alertid=15255991

If you sent a rebate in you may have received  a rebate card with a shop name on it that didn’t make any sense. One customer got a card with only good at “Hometown Motors” in MN, another was only good at another Burlington shop, that shop doesn’t even use Valvoline oil. Valvoline changed rebate processing companies and the new company made some mistakes. Rest assured your rebates are redeemable at Hometown Garage, regardless of what shop name is on them. We will redeemed the incorrect coupons and Valvoline is sending those customers, that we’ve heard from, an addition rebate card to apologize for the inconvenience.

If you received an incorrect card we will accept it and if you let us know we’ll have Valvoline put you on the list for a second card.

We:

• use 100% recycled paper
• we put recycling receptacles in the waiting room & shop
• recycle the steel, aluminum, & lead generated by repairs
• recycle scrap tires
• recycle used oil filters
• use a rubbish company that dumps their trucks in a warehouse and sorts the rubbish to reclaim recyclables
• send the used anti-freeze to be recycled
• use the waste oil generated to heat the shop
• recycle the old batteries

We’re doing a pretty good job but we found an area we could better at. Our rubbish company sorts the rubbish except the cardboard often gets contaminated by the other trash in the dumpster and it can’t be recycled.

To celebrate Earth Day we had a separate dumpster brought in this morning just for cardboard. Now 100% of the cardboard we generate, will get recycled. Almost everything comes in a cardboard box, so that’s a lot of cardboard.

It’s time to vote in the 2010 Reader’s Choice Awards and once again we would appreciate your vote.

Thanks Again

The Hometown Garage Team

If your car’s manufacturer specifies synthetic oil that’s what you must use. When we service the car we put in the oil specified by the car’s manufacturer at the minimum. In many cases we put in a better oil.

In this case it was an older car that didn’t require synthetic oil. The customer went elsewhere where they were up-sold a certain brand of synthetic oil. The shop even put a real official looking sticker under the hood that said “only use x  brand synthetic oil”. The customer had no idea they had used synthetic oil but remembered the oil change was “really expensive”.

In this case the use of synthetic oil will not likely add significant life to the car. It’s driven mainly in the city and regularly changing the oil will add more value. When synthetic oil first came out there was talk about not changing back to conventional oil because it would cause seals to leak. Wives’s tale or truth; I don’t know but we’ve never been able to attribute a leak to switching back. That was a long time ago, today the oils are without a doubt compatible with each other.

Synthetic oil is a better product; if you want to use it start when the car is new. Switching over in a high mile car won’t make it a low mileage engine.  We removed the bogus sticker and put our oil in.

This is where it gets more complicated. There is a third oil, called blended or synthetic blend. It has some of the properties of synthetic and a price closer to conventional oil. We stopped using conventional oil several years ago.  Our most basic service comes with blended oil.  At most shops and the quick lubes this is an upgrade or add on. At Hometown it’s just part of the “Old Time Value” we put in every job.

If you have any questions about motor oil or what your vehicle takes; send us an email.

The first cold snap of prior years bought in a flood of dead batteries. Marginal batteries give out in the extreme cold. Arriving in the morning we’d find the cars that had been towed in during the night and the parade of tow trucks would continue through the day.

That morning I was surprised to find that no cars had been towed in during the night. There also were no messages on the machine. Unusual, but I was sure they were coming. I was wrong, they didn’t come. At the end of the day we had only done three batteries.Maybe it wasn’t really that cold? I called our battery distributor to reorder the 3 batteries and learned their sales were through the roof that day. They couldn’t keep up with the deliveries. Why did we only sell 3 batteries?

I needed to find out why. I knew our customer base had grown so that wasn’t it. A quick look at battery sales for 2009 showed they were up, so that wasn’t it.  Another look at the data showed that battery sales used to spike in the extreme cold and extreme heat, I knew that; but in 2009 the spikes were gone. Battery sales  were pretty even all year. Very interesting but why?

What happened? In 2008 I made testing the battery part of our regular maintenance service. We use a very accurate, computerized battery tester to identify a worn out battery before it causes a symptom the customer would notice and before it leaves the customer stranded. My goal was to provide a better service. Did I expect results like this? Honestly, I didn’t.

As this case study shows, preventive maintenance works. It saves money, time, aggravation and inconvenience.

If you have your car serviced at a quick lube, ask them to test your battery; they don’t offer this service. If we service your car, you don’t need to ask, we’ll test it at your next regular maintenance service.

As I drove in this morning it seemed quite a few people either forgot or they just don’t give a damn about anyone else on the road. We’ve also seen wiper systems damaged when the person hit the brakes and the pile of ice & snow slid off the roof and across their own windshield, taking the wipers with it.  Please take a couple extra minutes & clear the snow.

They make some great snow pushers that reach on to the roof and don’t scratch the paint. They’re available at a number of places, including Hometown Garage.