Posted on 1/14/2024
With hotter weather and brutal heat waves becoming more common, the pressure in your vehicle's tires goes up. After all, heat causes air to expand, and the air in your tires follows the laws of physics. Overinflated tires can reduce your vehicle's traction, cause a hard, punishing ride and make your tires wear out faster; all are important safety issues. Four out of every ten drivers rarely check tire pressure. Some rely on their vehicle's tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS) to keep an eye on proper tire inflation. But it's not designed to do that. TPMS is a safety feature that has been required on vehicles made in 2008 or later, using sensors in the wheels that alert you to tire pressure problems. That warning can be a light on your dash, a digital message or a readout of the pressure in each individual wheel. But a study showed that more than 40 percent of drivers don't even know what the tire pressure monitoring light symbol looks like! One looks like a ho ... read more
Posted on 1/1/2024
Ever wonder how your vehicle’s transmission is connected to your wheels? After all, when you hit a pothole or some other uneven part of a road’s surface, there has to be something that can maintain the connection between the transmission and the wheel yet keep everything moving at the same speed. That very cool device is called a CV joint, a kind of driveshaft running to each wheel. The CV stands for constant velocity because it keeps the drive wheels moving at a constant speed (velocity). They’re used mostly on front-wheel drive vehicles but also in rear-wheel and all-wheel drive vehicles. The joints move up and down and adjust to bumpy surfaces. Plus, they are covered in a rubber boot which protects them from road debris and also holds lubrication in. There’s a CV joint and boot on the transmission side and one on the wheel side. Unfortunately, the spot that usually fails first is that rubber protective cover (the boot).&nbs ... read more