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.

Finding a Certified Technician

How do you know if a car care pro really knows his or her stuff? Well, one thing that’s very important is finding a good repair shop and a trained technician to repair your automobile. Well, we’ve come to a Toyota training center and we’re joined by Tony Molla from ASE to give use some tips. Well, Tony, welcome to Goss’ Garage, but my goodness, what have we got… Read More

Paintless Dent Repair

So you've got a small dent or ding in your car, how do you get it out? Well, three little letters... P-D-R... that's paintless dent repair. A skilled technician can repair dings and dents without a trace. We get a lot of questions here at Goss' Garage about PDR, and joinnig us to share some pointers is Mr. Bob McConkey from DentBusters. Welcome to Goss’… Read More

Garage Solutions

This time, solutions to a couple of common garage problems. First is how do you check the brake lights on your car without two people-one to push the brake pedal, the other to walk around the back of the car and see if the lights actually work? Well, that is unless you do what we’ve done here. We’ve purchased an inexpensive mirror and mounted it beside the garage… Read More

Flushing

I was really shocked when I read an article in a major consumer-oriented magazine that said that certain types of preventive maintenance weren’t needed, especially things like flushes. Well, you know, one of the things that’s very important toward keeping your car for a long time is to change the oil and change the oil filter and always use high-quality products… Read More

Jump Starting

Old-fashioned booster cables can be big problems for late-model cars. You see, they were good back in the day, but back in the day, cars didn’t have a lot of computers and electronics. These can damage computers and electronics because of voltage surges through the electrical system. Throw ‘em away. You can replace them with a couple of different things: this is a… Read More

Aerodynamics

One of the more important aspects of designing an automobile these days is the aerodynamics - you see aerodynamics, or the way the air moves over the vehicle, controls all sorts of things: first it gives the engineers and the designers the ability to make the car look good, but further than that it affects handling of the automobile, it affects engine cooling,… Read More

Hidden Accident Damage

If you have a very minor bumper-tapping accident, don’t fool yourself into thinking that there is no damage because you can’t see any. Take a look here. We’ve taken the cover off of this bumper and here we have one type of energy absorbing material. It’s an egg crate material made out of plastic and we can see right here that it’s all deformed. Well, there was no… Read More

Jacks and Lifts

Back when this car was young, in an emergency, you lifted it with a bumper jack such as we see here. Well, it wasn’t much in its time, and, you know, things haven’t improved all that much over the years. Here’s what we have in today’s cars. These are scissors jacks, and they’re okay, I suppose, in an emergency but never when you’re working on your car. Working on… Read More

Slurpie in Your Seats

You say you like to live dangerously? Well here’s a great way to do it. Buy yourself some syrupy drink like we have here, put it in one of these flimsy cup holders, and then find a back road with lots of bumps, or a railroad track, or a couple of speed bumps, or maybe a couple of kids in the car holding on to the drinks, and you are courting disaster. How so?… Read More

Running Hot and Cold

If something’s wrong with your health, you go to the doctor, and the doctor runs a series of tests to find out what’s wrong. One of the first things they do is take your temperature, because that’s a good indicator of what’s going on. Then they listen-they listen to your heart and your lungs and so on-to see if there’s any problems there. That also applies to your… Read More