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.
Catalytic Converter Issues
Since 1975, virtually all cars have had catalytic converters. Well, exactly what is a catalytic converter? Well it’s a device in the exhaust system that reacts with the exhaust coming out of the engine and neutralizes it. Makes it a lot more friendly to the atmosphere. Alright, now today cars have catalytic converters that look, pretty much like this, on average.… Read More
Engine Mounts
A common complaint that we see in my repair shop is my engine vibrates when I’m sitting at a traffic light what can I do? Well, we start talking to the client and invariably they tell us well I went to another shop and they did a tune up and that didn’t help anything. Well, first the word tune-up should put you on notice that hey, something’s not right because… Read More
Tire Maintenance
Frequently some of the most overlooked parts of a car are its tires. And to give us some pointers on tire maintenance we have our tire expert Matt Edmonds. Matt, welcome back to Goss’ Garage. MATT EDMONDS: Pleasure to be here Pat. PAT GOSS: Alright, what do you got for us? MATT EDMONDS: Well, I’ll tell you when it comes to taking care of your tires and getting the… Read More
Oil Filters
The single most expensive part of any automobile is typically going to be the engine. Yet with all of that expense involved, people still try to get away with the cheapest that they can as far as maintaining it. Oil filters are a good example. Why would you buy an expensive oil filter to protect that expensive engine? Or at least that seems to be the mental… Read More
Track vs. Street Tires
Well you want to take your car to the race track, and you think you’ve got the proper tires, well you might be wrong. And here to give us some pointers Rick Robinson from American High Performance in Lorton, Virginia. Rick, welcome back to Goss’ Garage. RICK ROBINSON: Thank you Pat. PAT GOSS: Alright, here we have a typical tire, big, low profile. Good for… Read More
Timing Belts and Chains
In any engine you have to have a way to operate the valves in the top of the engine and that’s done by means of connecting the crank shaft in the bottom of the engine to the cam shaft or cam shafts in the top of the engine. Now back in the day, for many, many, many years this was the method they did that with. It was a very simple timing chain with sprockets such… Read More
Odometer Rollback Fraud
Since the advent of digital odometers on cars most people seem to think that they can’t be tampered with, but that is a pure myth, and to explain we have Chris Vasso from Carfax. Chris, welcome back to Goss’ Garage. CHRIS VASSO: Always great to be here Pat. PAT GOSS: Alright, tell us about today’s odometer fraud. CHRIS VASSO: Well odometer fraud is alive and well… Read More
Buying Classic Cars
So you think it’s time to buy that collectible car that you’ve been dreaming about all these years. Well, that’s a good thing, but unless you do it right you might not wind up with what you think you’re getting. And here to give us some pointers we have Tony Fleming from Fleming’s Ultimate Garage. Tony welcome back to Goss’ garage. TONY FLEMMING: Thanks so much… Read More
New Welder
If you’re into do-it-yourself at all and you have any idea about doing restoration work, well at some point you will need a welder. Now welding like everything else around automobiles has changed over the years. Here we have a basic wire feed welder. And when we say wire feed what we mean is that there’s a spool of special welding wire inside of that that is… Read More
Hub Issues
Daily driving can sure take a toll on our vehicles. But not to worry, Pat Goss is here with the info we need on a sensitive topic PAT GOSS: Most drivers wouldn’t know a hub bearing from a wind shield wiper, but hub bearings are an integral part of all vehicles and they’re a lot more complicated than they used to be. And we have Tom Taylor our internet parts guru… Read More