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.

Bearing Issues

Progress marches forward, or is it backward? I’m not sure. It depends on your point of view. But if you happen to have an older car, or even some of the newer cars, that still use wheel bearings, such as we see here - oh, yeah, these are becoming obsolete, but you may still have these. These are tapered roller bearings and they do need periodic service. The… Read More

Clearing Up PCV Valve Problems

One of the most overlooked systems on the car is the PCV system, Positive Crankcase Ventilation. And most people make some serious mistakes because they think the PCV valve, such as I have here in my hand a couple of different styles, the PCV valve is all there is. And they replace that periodically and think they’re good. Well, that’s wrong. There’s a lot more… Read More

Cleaner Gasoline

Not only have gas prices changed dramatically over the years, so have the gasolines themselves. You see, the federal government is very concerned with the environment, and they have mandated over the years that certain chemicals be put into gasoline to make them burn better for a cleaner environment. Well, that’s a good thing, but it has a downside. Some of these… Read More

New Generation Adjustable Suspension

Lots of cars come from the factory with air suspension systems, but not one of them can do what the air suspension system on the 3-Series BMW can do. When a BMW 3-Series comes from the factory it normally has coil springs, but what we see here is a car that has been outfitted with a Praxis system from Bridgestone. Now this is aftermarket, and it really is an… Read More

Cleaning With Abrasives

Whether you’re bringing something back from the brink or just performing a general repair, you’ll probably find that some form of abrasive cleaning could be very beneficial. But the first thing to remember, you never put anything that’s greasy or oily into any kind of abrasive cleaning machine because the oil and grease will foul the media material that’s used for… Read More

Taming Rusty Nuts and Bolts

The arch enemy of every do-it-yourselfer is rust and corrosion on nuts and bolts and fasteners. And you know just about everybody does it the wrong way. Say if you had this bolt over here, all rusted up like it is, how would you go about getting it loose? Well, the first thing you would do is not to put a wrench on it but to take a wire brush and brush the rust… Read More

Mothballed Motorcycles

For the most part motorcycles tend to be seasonal vehicles, and that means they’re going to be laid up for a certain number of months out of the year. To avoid disaster there are things that you have to do to protect them during that lay-up period. Number one is to fill the fuel tank and treat the fuel with a fuel stabilizer. Then run the motorcycle for about ten… Read More

Choose Your Lube

There must be a thousand different types of lubricants that can be used around an automobile. Believe it or not, the majority of them do not come out of a grease gun. One of the things that we find people doing all the time is they go under the car to lubricate the chassis. That is if your car still has grease fittings in the chassis. And they get near the brake… Read More

Engine Cleaning

As cars have changed there are new and expensive reasons why you want to keep the engine bay clean. See, in the old days, the only reason you cleaned the engine was cosmetic so it looked good. But today things are dramatically different. In the old days, you had basic, inexpensive radiator hoses. Today you have complex hoses with all these different fittings and… Read More

Evernham Racing

We have some tips for the do-it-yourselfer and what they can do to make the home shop more user-friendly. And to that end, we’ve come to Statesville, North Carolina and Ray Evernham of Evernham Motorsports. Ray, welcome to Goss’ Garage. EVERNHAM: Thank you for inviting me. GOSS: Now, your shop is absolutely gorgeous. What could the do-it-yourselfer take away… Read More