San Carlos & Valley Springs Auto Repair

Hi peeps!     The word Hybrid has been a very active word since year 2000. What does Hybrid mean? Well, when you say the word today, A car comes into mind, most likely, a Toyota Prius.   Hybrid essentially is the blending of different things. For example, have ever eaten a Pluot? It is a Hybrid of a plum and an apricot. Hybrid in a vehicle means that there are more than one mode of propulsion. There is an "Internal Combustion Engine" or ICE and a form of high voltage electric motor blended to work together. The high voltage motor requires electric current. This comes from stored energy or the HV Battery. Typically, the HV battery is made up of many small batteries together in series to create a large high voltage battery. The purpose of this technology is to allow high MPG. The HV system will produce torque to allow the ICE to not work as hard, this conserves fuel. One t ... read more

Hey Fellow Car Fans!   Today, I’m talking about wheel alignments. We have all heard the term. Some clients even come in because the car drifts or pulls and they think they might need one. The question is, how can you really tell? Here is the skinny on wheel alignments. Most of the time, pulls and drifts are not caused by an incorrect wheel alignment. The cause is usually tire related. A wheel alignment usually just aids in the proper wear of your tires. I will give you some terms or measurements associated with your suspension. The primary culprit for tire wear is a measurement called TOE. There is POSITIVE TOE, OR TOE IN. We describe this condition as Pigeon Toed, where the front of the tires are closer together than the rear. The next is NEGATIVE TOE, OR TOE OUT. We call this “Charlie Chaplin” where the front of the tires are further from each other than the rear of the tire. The ... read more

Hey fans and people who just want to be in the know! Have you ever had a shop tell say that you had an oil leak, but yet you never see any oil on your driveway or in your garage? It makes you wonder what they are looking at. If you are a client of Toole's Garage, you already know that we send pictures so you can see what we are looking at. Just because an engine or transmission has an oil leak doesn't necessarily mean it will travel and hit the ground.  Sometimes these pesky oil leaks will slowly seep down the sides of the engine or transmission and get enough dirt and debris stuck to it to where it just puts a coating on everything. The reason shops will recommend doing oil leak repairs is because when the oil gets on any rubber components, like control arm bushings, engine mounts, or strut bushings, it will cause the rubber to deteriorate. Most cars of todays oil sealing gaskets are made out of rubber. They do a fantastic job of keep ... read more

Hey all!    I often get asked the question "Do you replace tires at Toole's Garage?". Well, we absolutely do take care of our clients tires, we also align the vehicle as well. What you should know about tires however, is something that most tire places don't know, or won't mention. The reason why tires vary in price so much is mostly due to the quality of the tire, in some cases, the brand name actually will dictate some of the cost, just like anything else. But there are many ratings when it comes to tires. There is tread wear, temperature, and traction. Tread wear is listed as a number, it typically determines the composition of the rubber if it's either going to be a very hard rubber or a very soft rubber. The hard rubber tires will have a long tread life, but typically are not as grippy once warmed up. On the contrary most soft rubber tires are very grippy when w ... read more

Hey All,      Yes, I am writing about an Oil Change. Why? I will tell you. This is me hopping on my soapbox. Engine oil is the life blood of your engine. Technology has changes, engines are getting more precision, lighter, physically smaller, etc. Oil has gotten better as well. Here is where the problem starts. Manufacturers are recommending oil changes due to driving styles, measured by analytics.This is not actually measuring the actual oil in the car. Many of you out there have changed your own oil, many of you have not. You will see that new oil looks lovely, like a nice olive oil. During its lifespan, it somehow turns into a dark staining black substance that seems thicker than it went in. How does that happen? Imagine a campfire, and you add a piece of wood that maybe had a little paint on it. It creates a nasty soot burning off of it. Inside your engine, the gasoline that is igniting is creating ... read more

Hey Fans and people who just want to know!    I get the question asked a lot about brake pads. There are so many brands and types out there, it feels just like walking down a grocery isle. "Hmm, do I go for the pads on the top shelf, or grab the cheap ones down below?" I usually will go with some sort of OEM brake pad that is Ceramic based.There are basically 3 types of pads now, an organic material, a semi-metallic material, and ceramic material.   Primarily, the organic gives you nice quiet brakes, low brake dust, but not the best feel when really needing to stop, meaning, the stopping power is the least effective.      Semi-metallic pads have the best stopping power, but are noisy and create a lot of brake dust. We have also found that the copper used in brake pads is causing some problems in the environment (no good).   Lastly, there is ceramic pads. They are a great combination of both o ... read more

Hey Fans!   I get this question asked a lot. What is a Timing Belt, and why do I have to change it? Simply put, the timing belt is a toothed belt that keeps the engine in sync, or as its name mentions, time. There are essentially 2 halves of an engine, an upper half and a lower half. The bottom side of the engine is the crankshaft, it is known as the rotating assembly because the pistons are connected to the crankshaft. As the explosions happen from the fuel ignition in the cylinder, the pistons are forced downward causing the crankshaft to rotate. The crankshaft has a toothed gear on the front that the timing belt rides on. This rotation causes the belt to move and spin the other half of the engine that contains the camshaft, or multiple camshafts. They also have a toothed gear attached. This camshaft pushes on the valves against the springs to make them open. This lets air and fuel ... read more

Hey Fans! I just had a conversation with a customer about the "lifetime transmission fluid" in their Toyota. They have about 40,000 miles on their Prius and the ATF is black and burnt. The transmissions of today are fairly complex inside, and hybrid vehicles typically have high voltage electric motors in them. The goal of fluid maintenance is to keep the quality of the lubricating oil/fluid as clean and debris free as possible.  Most vehicles now DO NOT have a serviceable filter inside the transmission, making it even more crucial to keep the fluid clean. The cost to include fluid servicing in a factory scheduled maintenance is relatively inexpensive. What it does for you is keep the burnt and dirty fluid that is naturally starting to occur to a minimum. It does not all not come out of the transmission at once, it is typically only going to be a slight dilution at each fluid change interval. You can maybe see how if it is allowed to get&nb ... read more

Hello all! This is our first Blog post. We just wanted to touch up on our theory/opinions on true maintenance of a vehicle. Since we are Honda vehicle specialists, our view on maintenance goes back a long way. When most vehicles were taken into the shop to be "fixed", certain manufacturers had a "maintenance schedule" for their vehicles. This brought about statements like.."Wow, they last forever".. and "It has how many miles on it?" To say that fluid maintenance and adjustments are important is an understatement. The cleaner you can keep a fluid, the less wear will occur, period. It cost approximately 10 cents less per mile to drive a maintained vehicle as opposed to the exact vehicle non maintained due to premature repairs. If you let your quality repair shop maintain your vehicle on average 3 to 4 days out of the 365 days in a year, you should have a vehicle that runs well with a high reliability factor. A simple approach that we take to help maintain our own cars is setting up a ... read more

A question that our customers ask is “What do you think about synthetic oil?” Our OPINION goes a little something like this..... We like synthetic oils. It is a better quality oil by far. Molecularly it does not break down like petroleum based or conventional oil, which means it is fighting against metal wear. We would suggest that everyone convert to synthetic oil. That being said, there is the idea that it lasts twice or three times as long in there as conventional oil, which molecularly is true, but it still will burn away because it is oil. When oil is new, it is a beautiful golden liquid, if you pour a little bit in a dish and try to light it on fire, it is not easy to do. Anyone who has changed their own oil, knows that when it comes out....it is anything but beautiful looking. It is black and stains anything it gets on. This blackness is a combination of fuel and carbon which is a naturally occurring event inside a combustion engine. If you pour this into a dish and attempt to ... read more