Just because manual transmissions aren’t as common these days as they used to be, there are still many out there, and at HMI Auto Care in Hackettstown, NJ, our certified technicians know how to keep them running at their best.
When you are having trouble with your car or truck starting and you open the hood up to take a peek to see this....you'll see what an overly corroded battery looks like. This happens naturally over time on vehicle battery terminals. If you are like 99% of normal Hackettstown drivers, you don't check your oil or your battery so you don't keep an eye on the amount of corrosion that's building up on your car or truck battery. Here at HMI Auto Care, we do and there are solvents that we can use here in the shop during a battery maintenance service that will help slow the corrosion process but nothing that can prevent it 100%. Way before it gets to this point, we will be suggesting you consider replacing the battery.
There is a reason we check your brake fluid when you come in for a service check. Maintenance pays big dividends and we want to avoid high repair costs for our Hackettstown drivers. Did you know that brake service isn't just all about the brake pads, drums & rotors? That we have found low brake fluid to be the cause of a large percentage of brake issues here at HMI Auto Care? Seriously, brake fluid is an important part of your braking system and with your service intervals being less frequent on the newer vehicles 5,000-10,000 more miles this has become an issue! Why?...
U-joints are a small, simple component - in fact, they have changed much since the very first automobiles. However, on any vehicle with a driveshaft, its ability to move depends entirely on the u-joint being there. You’ll often hear “maybe it’s the u-joints” as a solution offered for problems with a vehicle - but what are they, what do they do, and how do you know if yours is bad? HMI Auto Care in Hackettstown, NJ has the answers.
Don’t you hate it when potholes sneak up on you? There is a lot of money being spent on vehicle damage due to potholes. Do you know what parts of your car could receive the most damage.
Every car, truck, van, and SUV on the road today has headlights. However, you've probably noticed an increase in different types of headlights in more recent years - gone are the days where every vehicle on the road had the same bulb. Here is some information on headlights, from HMI Auto Care in Hackettstown, NJ.
Here at HMI Auto Care in Hackettstown we often do diagnostics and sometimes the problem is obvious after hooking the car up to the computer and reading the codes. However, sometimes it isn't obvious during a test drive or after hooking it up to all those computer programs! You know there is a problem and a Check Engine Light is on with the fleet customer telling you the car has been having issues starting and the light has been going off and on depending on several factors. No pattern, no simple answer but the problem becomes obvious when you start following the "threads of the issue" thanks to all that ASE Technician training.
Nothing works if your transmission doesn't work! Simply put you are going nowhere without it and it is the one thing that both car and truck drivers alike never think twice about until it really acts up or they have no power or simply don't move forward. Most of us have a newer car or truck with an automatic transmission in it vs. a standard transmission so do not notice that it is slipping gears until the problem is really serious so the question is how do you get the most out of your transmission? The obvious answer is to take care of your transmission with scheduled service per your owner's manual recommendation but we have put together a simple checklist for our Hackettstown drivers to help them become "transmission aware" as it were.
