Goss’ Garage

Pat Goss, MotorWeek's resident master technician, helps consumers understand car problems and how to speak the same language as their technician. As cars becoming increasingly complex, fewer repairs can be accomplished at home. Effective communication with a repair shop is vital to keeping consumer and operating costs under control. From rattles and squeaks to leaks and drips, Pat covers a myriad of issues designed to keep cars on the road and out of the repair shop.

Dash Lights & GPS

If, like me, you happen to be the proud owner of a 20-10 Ford F-150, well you’ll know it’s a great truck, but that it has one major failing: and that’s the instrument cluster. You see, there’s no way to turn the back lighting on in the instrument cluster during the daylight. Yes you could cover the sensor up there on the dash, and that’ll turn on the instrument… Read More

Buying Used Classics

For all of you who want to buy an older or a collectible car, there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye. Shiny paint may not be the answer. And to give us some pointers, we have Tony Fleming, who is an expert in all of this. Tony, we’ve got two cars here. One is this Corvette, which is a wonderful car. And, I don’t know of anything that’s wrong with it. Then we… Read More

Jump Starting

Oh, you gotta love old fashioned booster cables. They don’t work with modern cars. You gotta be real, real careful with them, if you like to use them. Me? I would throw them away. One of my clients called for road service; the road service guy came out, hooked them up backwards, and fried all kinds of things on her car. Well, one of the things that you would never… Read More

Turbo Maintenance

This time we have Tom Taylor. He’s an online parts expert. Tom, one of the things we’re seeing in the repair shop is a lot more cars with turbos. And I’m sure you’re seeing some of that, too. As far as parts are concerned. TOM TAYLOR: Absolutely. More and more new cars; they’re trying to get more power out of smaller engines, so we’ll have turbos and multiple… Read More

Self Diagnosis

You wouldn’t self-diagnose a medical condition on yourself; you might wind up like this. So why do you self-diagnose so many things with your cars, that cause so many problems and waste so much money? One of the more typical things we see is that somebody comes into the repair shop, and maybe they had a tire wear problem, or maybe they have a shake or a shimmy.… Read More

Overheated Engine

“Cool your jets.” It’s what you’d tell your buddy when they get a little too heated. Well Pat Goss has some wise words for when your engine does the same. PAT GOSS: One of the things you do not want to do these days is to ignore the gauges on the dash of your car. You see, those gauges are pretty darn reliable. If they tell you that something’s wrong, you had… Read More

Coolant Check

Surprisingly, in my repair shop, we find one of the most neglected parts of the average car is the cooling system. Seems that a lot of people look at it as, “out of sight; out of mind.” They don’t pay any attention to it. But in reality, you should be checking the coolant in the cooling system at least once every year. Now, regardless of what the owner’s manual… Read More

Remember This

No matter how complicated a car might be, taking it apart is usually pretty easy. But getting it back together so that it works right? Well that can be a whole different story. And I’ve got a couple of tips to how we do it in the repair shop. See, one of the most valuable tools that we have is right here. This is a paint pen. We buy them in little packages like… Read More

Nuts and Bolts

Pat Goss: We need nuts and bolts to hold our vehicles together. But, it takes more than just nuts and bolts to hold things together properly. And here with some tips, we have Lyndon Abel from Patriot Harley-Davidson in Fairfax, Virginia. Welcome back to the show, Lyndon. LYNDON: Thanks for having me, Pat. PAT: Alright. You’ve got some familiar looking stuff laid… Read More

Oversized Tires

There’s a current trend toward plus sizing tires and wheels on cars and trucks, and SUVs, and now even motorcycles. Well they look great, but there may be some down sides to this plus sizing. And here to give us some pointers about motorcycles in particular, is Lyndon Abel from Patriot Harley Davidson in Fairfax, Virginia. Lyndon, welcome back to Goss’… Read More