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.
Tongue Weight and Towing 101
It seems like everybody is using their sport-ute or their pick-up truck to haul something that involves the hitch on the back of the vehicle. Hauling might entail the use of a universal carrier that fits into the receiver on the vehicle, or a specific one that’s designed to haul a motorcycle. Whether it’s specific or universal, they all have ratings on them. … Read More
Hot Flush
It seems a lot of the preventative maintenance on automobiles these days involves keeping things clean. Now a prime example of that is the E.G.R. system. E.G.R. stands for Exhaust Gas Recirculation, and what it does is, it takes exhaust as it leaves the engine and recirculates it back into the cylinders to reduce the burning temperature of the fuel and air mix… Read More
Online Repair Pitfalls
If ever there was a double-edged sword, it’s the Internet. You can get some of the best automotive information in the world from the Internet, and you can get some of the worst. If you happen to be an Internet junkie, you have to use some common sense. If you do a search for just about anything you want, you’ll get a lot of responses, but some of the more… Read More
Flat Tires - To Plug or Not to Plug?
Here’s something that will ruin you’re entire morning, the old screw or nail in the tire deal that leaves you with a flat. Well, they usually can be fixed, but you have to use some precautions here: number one, you’re going to have to put on a spare. Your spare is probably a temporary. It’s going to have all kinds of writing on it. I would suggest that you… Read More
Accessories for Your Motorcycle
We get lots of motorcycles questions especially about Harley-Davidsons, and here to give us some tips about Harley is Lyndon Abell, he’s the General Manager of Patriot Harley-Davidson in Fairfax, Virginia welcome to the show! LYNDON ABELL, GENERAL MANAGER, PATRIOT HARLEY-DAVIDSON: Thank you, Pat. GOSS: Now, we have a stock Harley here. Why doesn’t anyone leave… Read More
Plastic Fantastic Parts
There are lots of plastic parts under the hood of an automobile these days, and they’ll actually last longer than metal in most cases if you take proper care of them. Don’t spray anything under the hood; don’t use any chemicals that might dissolve the plastic, and above and beyond all, take proper care of the cooling system. The reason for that is a lot of the… Read More
Filling Tires with Nitrogen Gas
Tire technology changes at an amazing rate. One of the things that engineers figured out is if you make the sidewall of the tire shorter, it gives better traction, goes around corners better, because it’s stiffer. Well, fifteen years ago this was a high performance tire (right). Today we can see that the side wall on this one (left) is very short, works extremely… Read More
Stop Interior Leaks
Water leaks to the inside of the car can be dangerous! You’ve got to remember that mold and mildew in a confined space like the inside of a car can be very dangerous. So, how do you go about finding those leaks? Well, you’ll probably need an electronic leak detector such as we have here. This is a transmitter (right) that goes inside the car, then we have a… Read More
Clearing Up Cloudy Headlights
Here’s a problem that has become literally epidemic. Cloudy, discolored headlamp lenses. This is caused by the ultra-violet light from the sun. It attacks the surface of the plastic and causes it to get little pock marks and checks in it and so on, and you see it as this cloudy appearance. That diffuses the light into the air around the car and in general you… Read More
High Tech Tools
This time I have some interesting new products to work on cars with. First one is this Tracerline COBRA borescope. It has two lights on the end of it - a blue one to reflect the dye that you would use in leak detection. And it has a white one just to illuminate things - works really well. And you might find something like we found on one car. There was a bad… Read More