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.
Oil Viscosity
One of the most common questions that I get is that, well, I took my care in for an oil change and the technician told me that instead of that thin, watery, 0-20, 5-20 or 5-30 that the manufacturer recommends, you need something this is seriously going to protect your engine. You need 20-50, 10-40, some of these really thick oils. Don’t believe it. Modern engines… Read More
Headlight Upgrade
For decades, headlights on cars and trucks have been like these: incandescent lights. Well as time has gone on, they have moved from incandescent to HID and now we are seeing most cars with LEDs. Alright, now, what is the difference here? Well the difference primarily is gonna be that the color of these new lights is brighter and that the durability may be better.… Read More
Trans Flush
By now you all know that there is no such thing as any fluid on an automobile that lasts forever. Also you should know that there is no such thing as a sealed automatic transmission. Now what am I getting at here? Automatic transmission fluid doesn’t last forever. Transmissions need to be flushed and that should be done every 2-3 years or 24-36,000 miles. But here… Read More
Measure Up
No matter whether you have one big car or two Minis, if you’re going to do on it yourself, chances are you’re going to have to have something to measure parts and so on with. Well the old tried and true is a micrometer such as we see here just make sure you use your standard to keep it perfectly calibrated. But in today’s world, well it’s digital let’s face it.… Read More
Modern Tune-Up
Old habits die or hard, or so they say. And one thing I would really love to see go away is the term tune-up. See back 40 year ago when this vehicle was new, well tune-ups were a viable repair on a car. They consisted of what we called points, plugs, condensers. Points controlled the ignition system. The condenser was part of that. That was all to produce the high… Read More
Caliper Maintenance
Cars keep evolving, and as they evolve there are new procedures and problems that go along with that evolution. Not the least of which are modern brakes, now here we have a four-piston caliper, they’ve been around for years, but they typically were not used on garden-variety cars and sometimes they are today. Now the big thing with a four piston caliper is that… Read More
Grease/Lube/Oil
If you have ever wondered why there is so many different types of greases and lubricants for automobiles, well you might be surprised to see they’re not universal. Now if we look at greases in particular, grease is primarily a vehicle to hold oil and it releases that oil to lubricate the part that it’s on based on temperature or pressure or a combination of both.… Read More
Patch It Up
Since the very inception of steel bodies on automobiles, there has been one mortal enemy. And that is rust, especially rust through, structural rust and so on. Like on this classic Jeep we can see that the rocker panel is rusted, the dog leg is rusted. We need to replace these parts and of course for classics and collectibles, these parts are available, like this… Read More
Modern Stereos
The infotainment systems in modern cars are pretty amazing. Now why do we call them infotainment systems? Well info for information, tainment for the entertainment they give us. But they are very different from anything that we have had in the past. See in the past we had a radio, such as we have here. May have some features built into it, may have some auxiliary… Read More
Wheel Alignment
A phrase that I hear from lots of drivers all the time, I think my car needs a front wheel alignment. Alright well, does it really? See there’s more to a modern car than just a front wheel alignment. Now let’s see what we’re talking about. We have this little imitation car we’ve got the wheels properly aligned on it, we push it down the road and it goes straight.… Read More