Fact: Your new car will need repairs as it ages.
I have many clients that went out 5 years ago and bought new cars. Now that new car is aging and needs repairs. The Mustang below is only 6 years old and it’s already wearing out. Just because you buy a new car, you are not off the hook for maintenance.
2012 Mustang, out of warranty and in need of repairs. It has 157,000 miles on it and it’s worn out. The engine has been overheated, it burns and leaks oil, plus the front suspension is noisy over bumps.
Repairs will be needed to keep your car working correctly. Wear and tear from heavy use will bring you back to the repair shop. Worse yet, what if you breakdown and have to be towed in for repairs.
Warranty or no warranty, regular servicing and breakdown repairs are going to happen.
The first thing I tell clients is to have an emergency repair fund stashed away. I have cash stashed in my saving just for this type of thing. I have been stuck out-of-town before and cash is king.
The second thing I tell clients is to have a AAA gold card. The gold card is great if you travel out-of-town and need a tow. The gold card gives you all the road side assistance that you get from a normal card, but your free towing is now 100 miles vs 5 miles.
The VW on the left is being towed away today because it needs an engine replaced at $6,200. The VW on the right was just purchased by a client that did not want to overhaul an A/C system on a 10-year-old Honda CRV. Both VW’s are 2015 models and they both have around 40,000 miles on them.
Even if your car is brand new, you should get it serviced before any big trip out-of-town.
The idea is to prevent a breakdown. I have seen brand new cars with major flaws that need repairs.
ASE tech’s will notice wear and age issues that could cause a breakdown way before they become a failure on the road.
Get your car inspected before you hit the road.
One week before you travel, take your car in for service. Even if you’re not due for service, get your car looked at before you hit the road. If your car has any repairs that are needed, the repair shop has time to get them completed before you need to leave town.
2014 Nissan Rogue, with 52,000 miles on the clock. This one came in on the hook. An overheated cooling systems caused an engine failure. Leaks like this can be repaired way before they become a failure on the road.
If you have an older car and it’s too worn out to leave town. Rent a car for your trip. It’s less expensive to rent a car for the weekend than it is to be broken down on the road waiting for a tow truck.
This belt is from a 4-year-old car with 57,000 miles on it. I was installing a new alternator and I advised replacing the belt while it was off. The belts cost was $34.00. The client said no to replacing it. Oddly they let a friend use the car for a week and the belt came apart, allowing the engine to over heat. The driver drove the car till it stopped. The engine was destroyed.
Technology in cars today.
Todays car owners are spoiled by technology. 25 years ago most of the cars on the road visited the repair shop 45% more often than todays cars. Advancements in how cars are built is one reason why they seem to last longer. Service intervals are longer and many parts last a lot longer. 25 years ago most cars needed a tune up every 24,000 miles. Today most cars don’t need a tune up till 100,000 miles.
Do cars last longer?
Todays cars do last longer and they do cost more to repair. Belts and hoses look the same as they did 25 years ago, but now they cost 40% more to replace. Brakes are bigger, tires have changed and A/C systems costs are double what they use to be. When the parts fail, they fail big. The change in overall costs is due to the extra technology to run all the cool gadgets.
A hybrid car looks very cool in the show room, but jump forward 10 years when you have to replace a battery pack at $3,200. Turbo charged engines cost big with any failure. Cylinder canceling engines like some of the GM V8’s and now it’s new turbo 2.7L 4 cylinder engine they will be putting in full size trucks in 2019 cost a small fortune to fix when they fail.
Many failures will happen from age and normal use. Other failures will happen from bad advice and a failure to follow service intervals. Below is an image of what happens when the wrong parts are used to save money. Using the wrong parts can cost you more later.
This is what happens when budget copper spark plugs are used in place of double platinum plugs. Copper plugs cost $2.59 each. double platinum plugs cost $9.67 each. Times 4 on a 4 cyl engine. The plug savings caused 2 coils to fail plus a tow. This was done by a shop just 1 mile away from my shop. The correct repairs cost 3 time what the original tune up did, plus an 18 mile tow.
I have over 4 dozen clients that “ignore” the service intervals on their cars. When they have to be towed in and whine about the tow. I just tell them that better service intervals could have prevented the failure.
98% of the time I am 100% right. 3 Service intervals a year will go a long way to prevent breakdowns on the road.
Just because it’s new does not insure you will not have a breakdown. Let us help you keep that new car new or make your old car feel new again.
Heyanthonyaz.com
The Fairlane Victoria sold for 2,249 in 1956, but by todays inflation % it would be like buying a car for 19,844 
Finding a classic that is in good condition takes lots of work. When you find the one you like, you need to get it inspected before buy it. The rule is, once you buy it, it’s your problem now. Sellers do not have to tell you a thing, they are not lying to you, they just don’t tell you what they know about the car they are selling. 
Holding back information is not a crime, but it should be. An inspection is the only way to protect you and your hard-earned money.
Just because it looks fabulous on the outside does not indicate it’s in good shape underneath the sheet metal. Rust, mechanical wear, electrical faults and body repairs that did not get the attention they needed during the restoration are very common, Flawless paint is a red flag, it may be pretty on the outside, but what is underneath all that paint? This 56 Fairlane was in distress years ago, now it’s a mess of body filler and crap repairs on top of more crap repairs. The body is dead, all the mounting points on the right side are rotten. 
The engine runs OK but the transmission makes noise and the gear shift linkage is worn out to the point it is hard to get from one gear to the next. The doors and hood don’t close correctly and you have to slam the driver’s door to get it to latch. The brakes are a mess too, it’s unsafe to drive. 
The car needs so much work that it’s hard to find a starting point. Getting your car inspected by a certified mechanic with a written evaluation gives you power to negotiate a lower price or pass on the buy all together and keep looking for a good car to spend your money on. So it’s shiny with pretty paint and tons of chrome, but if you can’t drive it, what is the point of buying it in the first place. It does not matter who you buy from, get it inspected…
Over loading a circuit with aftermarket equipment is the most common reason for a fuse to fail “blow out” In a home, you have 
circuit breakers that protect each circuit within the home.
I have found ear rings, small tokens, and paper clips stuck in the 12V power sockets. A direct short to ground will cause a fuse to fail instantly. 
Once you remove the junk from the socket the fuse can be replaced. At our service desk we offer free 12V socket to USB power adapters to plug into the open 12V sockets, just to prevent issues like junk or coins from getting into the socket and shorting the terminals in the socket
You do not want to use an inverter larger than 150 watts on a 15 amp fused circuit. Most basic 12V sockets only have a 15 amp fuse to power the socket, and its easy to pop a fuse with an inverter, cell phone, and GPS navigation all plugged in at the same time.
We re-finish plastic head light lenses all the time.
Not all lenses can be saved. Rock pits, scratches, and plastic cracking can not be fixed with sanding if it’s too deep into the plastic surface. 20% of the head lamp housings I run across in my shop have major damage and need to be replaced.
The process of refinishing the plastic lens is fairly simple, and many parts stores sell DIY kits to sand, polish and protect the plastics.
So here it is in a nut shell, we clean the plastics, wet sand the imperfections out of the surface. Then use a 2 step polishing compound to restore the clear as glass look. Last step is a double coating of wax. Regular car war works fine for this.
Filters protect your car from harmful debris that can cause damage to internal moving parts. The engine, and transmission need service regularly to keep them alive and happy. So what about you, the driver? Back in the mid 80’s some European car manufactures started adding air filters to the A/C system. Mercedes-Benz called it a particulate filter and it protected the A/C evaporator core from getting contaminated with hair, lint, leaves, and other nasty things that could get pulled into the air intake of the A/C system. It also protected the inside of the car from dust and oder. Most of all, the clean air was a benefit to the driver. European cars started using “Cabin Air Filters” first, around the mid 80’s. In the late 90’s I started to see them in high-end Japanese cars, and by the mid 2000’s almost all cars had some type of Air Filter added to the A/C system. The filter works great till, till it looks like the one in the picture. A filter can only do its job if it can catch and hold the dirt. This filter is past its way past its prime. looking at it, you might think it’s very old, but it’s only 3 years old, but the car is only used in town and in 3 years has only driven 7,000 miles.
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