Florissant auto repair

All new passenger vehicles on our Florissant, Missouri, roads now have tire pressure monitoring systems – TPMS for short. They are designed to alert you if your tires are underinflated. Since they are fairly new, a lot of people have questions about them.First off, the most important thing is that you still need to check your tire pressure every week – or at least every time you gas up. The TPMS system alert comes in when your tire is 20 percent below the factory recommendation. So if the recommended pressure is 34 pounds per square inch, the TPMS warning won't come on until the pressure is at 28 pounds. That's significantly underinflated, enough to raise safety concerns.The worst is tire failure. A severely underinflated tire can overheat and fail. Also, handling degrades to the point that you may not be able to steer out of trouble. Also underinflated tires wear out faster and they waste fu ... read more

Florissant drivers rely on their vehicle's coolant system to keep their engine cool. Coolant (also called antifreeze) mixed with water flows through your vehicle engine and absorbs heat. The mixture then flows out to the radiator where it's cooled by air flowing over the radiator. From there the coolant/water mix circulates back through the engine to absorb more heat.There's a reason we mix coolant and water. Water alone actually does a good job transferring heat from the engine. The problem is that water boils at a temperature that's easily reached inside your vehicle's engine, so it can turn to steam which does not conduct heat as well and is harder to contain.Also, if it's freezing outside in Florissant, the water in your engine could freeze while your vehicle is sitting out in the Missouri cold.So, if you remember your high school chemistry, you'll know that a mixture has both a higher boiling point and a lower freezing point ... read more

Some Florissant vehicle owners wonder why garysautorepair and other Florissant auto repair shops charge a fee for vehicle diagnostics. Receiving a diagnostic charge at garysautorepair for a tricky automotive problem shouldn't be a surprise. In the Florissant area, automotive diagnostics can cover quite a range. If you hear a noise in your vehicle brakes when you slow down in rush-hour traffic on a busy Missouri road, you pull off at the next off-ramp and take a quick visual check. That is usually enough to know what needs to be done. If you're having an intermittent problem with your vehicle engine, however, a garysautorepair diagnosis may be much more involved.Much of the Florissant driver's confusion comes when the problem involves the Check Engine light. The Check Engine light comes on when the engine management computer has sensed a problem. There's a common misconception among Missouri drivers that the trouble code tells the garysautorepair technician exactly what's wrong. Th ... read more

Warm weather or cold, Florissant drivers still need to think about their vehicle's air conditioning. Most Florissant people don't service their air conditioning until after it fails. At garysautorepair, we can advise you on your vehicle manufacturers preventive maintenance schedules for air conditioning service, just as we do for transmission service, oil changes and so on. Maintaining your air conditioning system means that you always have enough refrigerant to properly do the job. Small leaks in the vehicle's air conditioning system allow the refrigerant to escape and the system can't cool the air as well. We see that a lot at garysautorepair in Florissant.The refrigerant also contains oil that lubricates air conditioning components and keeps the seals resilient. Low refrigerant and lubricating oil means that the air conditioning parts will wear out prematurely, and all Florissant vehicle owners know that air conditioning repairs can b ... read more

Since driving requirements and lifestyles differ among Florissant drivers, your vehicle manufacturer publishes two auto maintenance schedules: the regular schedule and the severe service schedule. Which schedule should Florissant drivers follow? Here are some questions to ask yourself:Are most of your trips less than four miles/six kilometers around Florissant?Are most of your trips less than 10 miles/16 kilometers in below-zero Missouri temps?Are most of your trips off-highway in Missouri?Do you drive often in dusty Florissant areas?Do you regularly tow a trailer or carry heavy loads around Florissant?Do you drive in very hot or very cold Missouri weather?Think about your typical week. Do you live by your nearest Florissant on-ramp and enjoy a non-stop commute? Or, do you drive the neighborhood car pool in stop-and-go traffic on Florissant surface streets? Let's suppose your owner's manual says the severe service oil change recommendation is 3,000 miles ... read more

The median age for cars in the Florissant, Missouri area was over nine years. And two-thirds had over 75,000 miles. At garysautorepair we hear reports that those numbers continue to rise. If you have a high-mileage vehicle in the Florissant area, bring it into garysautorepair for high-mileage maintenance.1779 N Hwy 67Florissant, Missouri 63033314-831-5843 Many people in Missouri are keeping their vehicles longer. The economy has influenced that, but the fact that modern vehicles are more durable and reliable means that owning a high mileage vehicle doesn't have to be a painful experience.Local car owners in Florissant with over 100,000 miles on their vehicles often ask which service intervals they should follow. Let's start with the special needs of the older vehicle...The reality is that time and mileage will take its toll. The engine and transmission will have more sludge. The fuel, steering and brake systems will have gum and varnish built up. There ... read more

When it comes to their vehicles, some Florissantresidents don't have amaintenance mindset. They know they need to take care of their cars, but it just seems really hard to get them to remember to do it. Florissant drivers generally accept that many things in life require regular maintenance but just may not have applied it to their vehicles.Here's something that will help: The key to good vehicle maintenance starts with the oil change. Think about it – when you go in for a full-service oil change, your friendly and knowledgeable garysautorepair service advisor will check all your fluids. If one of them is low, he can look for the reason. If your serpentine belt is cracked, he'll see it and let you know. Corroded battery cable – they've got you covered. And at garysautorepair, we check to see if your vehicle manufactur ... read more

Power steering is standard on nearly every vehicle in Florissant, Missouri, these days. Now there are some exotic, new types of power steering systems, but for the most part, the general setup is a pump that's driven by a belt powered by the engine. Contact the automotive professionals at garysautorepair in Florissant for questions about your power steering. The pump generates power that assists drivers as they steer their vehicle around Florissant, Missouri. Power steering systems use hoses to move pressurized fluid back and forth. These hoses can develop leaks so it's a good idea to have garysautorepair inspect them at every oil change. A check of the power steering fluid level is on the list for every full service oil change at garysautorepair because low fluid can damage the power steering pump. And the fluid needs to be compatible with the hoses and seals, so it's important to use the correct type – just ask your service advi ... read more

One might say the most challenging part of being an automotive service technician at garysautorepair in Florissant is diagnosing a problem before it can be fixed.Cars in Missouri are made up of a bunch of complex systems. There usually could be a number of reasons for any given symptom. So, it's challenging to track down the actual cause of the problem. And it can be frustrating for the vehicle owner because it can take time and money to get to the bottom of a problem. If it's not something obvious, it's easy for the customer to focus on the fixing and not the diagnosing.Let us at garysautorepair introduce you to something we'll call 'Customer Detective Work' –  helping your technician find clues to what's wrong.We start with the detective basics: What, Where and When. Play along with me; You come in to garysautorepair and your car is making a funny sound... Q: Where's the sound? A: Around the right front wheel. Q: What kind of sound? A: Kind of a clunk ... read more

Today we're going to talk about power steering service in Florissant. If you took an informal poll around Florissant you'd probably find that most vehicle owners have never heard of power steering service. That's not surprising. Even though power steering is standard on every vehicle, most people in Florissant aren't aware that it needs periodic service.If you're younger than a certain age, you've probably never driven a vehicle without power steering. To get an idea of the difference; if you've ever cut a board with a hand saw, you know it's a lot of work. Using a power saw is easy-peasy by comparison.Without power steering, your arms have to do all the work to steer the wheels, and that's hard, especially around downtown Florissant. That's why old cars had such big steering wheels: to get enough leverage to steer.Most vehicles in Florissant have a hydraulic power steering system. The serpentine belt from the engine powers a pump. The pump pressurizes the power steering fluid. Th ... read more