Today’s Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists auto maintenance article focuses on your serpentine belt. Your serpentine belt is a long belt that’s driven by your engine. It winds around several accessories that power important automotive systems. Let’s go over them.

First, the serpentine belt drives your sedan air conditioning system. It spins the compressor that makes the cool air that takes the edge off the summer heat in Phoenix.

Next, the belt powers the alternator. The alternator creates electricity that’s used by your sedan’s electrical systems and also charges your car battery. All Phoenix drivers know that without the alternator, the battery will go dead in a few miles.

The serpentine belt may also run the pumps for both the power steering and power brakes. And, on many sedans, the serpentine belt powers the water pump. The water pump circulates coolant through the engine to keep it within normal operating temperatures as you drive around Phoenix.

Now on some sedans, the water pump is powered by the timing belt instead of the serpentine belt. So you can see the serpentine belt does a lot of work. And it if breaks, it affects a lot of systems. That’s why manufacturers and your service advisor at Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists have recommended that it be changed every so often so that it doesn’t fail.

Your Phoenix service technician can perform a visual inspection of the belt to see if it has any cracks that signal the belt could fail soon and will measure the amount of belt material to make sure there is enough.

There’s a special, spring loaded pulley attached to the engine called the tensioner pulley. Its job is to make sure there’s a constant tension on the serpentine belt so that it doesn’t slip. The spring can become worn and no longer provide the necessary pressure to keep the belt tight. At Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists, we recommend that the tensioner be replaced at the same time as the serpentine belt.

All in all, the serpentine belt’s an important part for the function of your sedan. And it’s not that expensive to replace in Phoenix – so it’s good to do so before it fails.

The PCV Valve is a little, inexpensive part that does a big job for Phoenix drivers. PCV stands for Positive Crankcase Ventilation.

The crankcase is the bottom area of the engine that holds the oil. When the sedan engine’s running, fuel is burned to generate power. Most of the exhaust from combustion goes out through the exhaust system. But some exhaust blows by the pistons and goes into the lower engine, or crankcase.

These hot gases are about seventy percent unburned fuel. This can dilute and contaminate the oil, leading to damaging engine oil sludge. It can also cause sedan engine corrosion, something we see occasionally at Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists. At high speeds on Phoenix freeways, the pressure can build up to the point that gaskets and seals start to leak.

Back in the old days, engine makers simply installed a hose that vented these gases out into the atmosphere. But starting in the 1964 model year, laws mandated that these gases be recycled back into the air intake system to be mixed with fuel and burned in the sedan’s engine.

This is much better for the environment and it saves gas too. (Budget-conscious Phoenix drivers take note!) The little valve that controls all this action is the PCV valve. The PCV valve lets gases out of the engine, but won’t let anything back in. Over time, the vented gases will gum up the PCV valve and it won’t work well. That can lead to all of the problems I’ve already described, oil leaks, excessive oil consumption and wasted gas.

Fortunately, it’s very easy to test the PCV Valve at Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists and quick and inexpensive to replace. Even so, it’s often overlooked because many Phoenix drivers don’t know about it. Check your sedan owner’s manual or ask your Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists service advisor. If this is the first time you’ve heard of a PCV valve, you might be in line for a replacement.

There’s another aspect to the PCV system. In order for the valve to work correctly, it needs a little clean air to come in. This is done through a breather tube that gets some filtered air from the engine air filter. Now some vehicles have a small separate air filter for the breather tube called the breather element. That’ll need to be replaced at Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists when it gets dirty.

Please ask your honest Phoenix service advisor about your PCV valve. For the price of a couple of burger combo meals in Phoenix, you can avoid some very expensive deep engine repairs.

Suspension systems will continue to operate effectively for many years and tens of thousands of miles. Eventually sedan components do wear out, but how long that takes depends a lot on how you drive in Glendale.

As you can imagine, if most of your driving is on smooth Arizona highways, your shock absorbers will last a lot longer than if you do most of your driving on bumpy roads or hauling heavy loads. In addition to just wearing out, sedan suspension components can be damaged in an accident or by a hard impact – like a pothole, hitting a curb or a rock in the road. Because the life span of shocks can vary so widely, your sedan manufacturer recommends periodic inspections.

During an inspection at Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists, your honest Glendale service technician will check for worn, broken or missing parts. Let me give a rundown of the major suspension components.

First there are the springs. The springs hold the weight of the vehicle. There are several kinds of springs. Springs are obviously heavy duty parts that rarely break or wear out. Shock absorbers work in conjunction with springs to smooth out the ride and help keep the tires on the road. The shocks are key to handling performance and ride comfort.

You’ve probably heard of struts. They combine a shock absorber and a coil spring in one unit. Shocks and struts will wear out over time. There are some signs that shocks or struts are wearing out. The tires may have a cupped wear pattern. This is from the shocks bouncing unevenly. You may notice a floaty or drifting sensation when cornering. If the front of your sedan dives excessively when stopping, or rocks back and forth after you stopped, your shocks may be worn out. And if they are leaking fluid, it’s definitely time to replace them.

If you are experiencing any of these symptoms, visit Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists for a suspension inspection. Same if you’ve been in an accident that involved one of your wheels. If your sedan suspension actually fails, it could lead to a serious accident, so take care of these things.

When you replace your shocks, it’s usually a good idea to replace all four at the same time. That’ll give you more even handling. Talk with your Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists service advisor because you don’t want a big difference between the performance of your shocks from wheel to wheel, and replacing all may be the safest bet.

There different grades of shocks and struts. You always want to use a replacement shock or strut that equals the one that came as original equipment when your sedan was new. But remember, they were designed to meet the expected needs of the broad range of Glendale people who buy that particular vehicle. Your needs may be more specialized.

For example if you want increased handling performance for your sedan, your honest Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists advisor can recommend an upgraded shock or strut to give you what you want. If you haul heavy loads or trailers, you can get a more heavy duty shock absorber.

Welcome to the Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists blog. Today, let’s talk about the effect of tire tread depth on braking. When talking about stopping power, most of us Chandler drivers tend to focus on our brakes. But our tires are where the rubber meets the road. So having good brakes isn’t enough. Safe Chandler drivers need to have tires with enough traction to translate braking power into stopping power.

Let’s focus on stopping in wet Chandler conditions. In order for a tire to have good contact with the road, it has to move the water out of the way. If it can’t move the water, the tire will actually ride on top of a thin film of water.

That’s called hydroplaning. If it’s really bad, Chandler drivers can actually spin out of control. At best, you won’t stop as fast.

So how does a tire move water? It has channels for water to flow through. Look at your sedan tire and you’ll see channels: channels that run around the tire and channels that flow across the tire. They’re designed to direct water away from the tire so it can contact the road better.

And the deeper the channel, the more water it can move. A brand new Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists tire has very deep channels and can easily move a lot of water. As the tire wears down, the channels become shallower and can move less water. When it wears down enough, it can seriously affect your ability to stop your sedan on wet Chandler roads.

So that’s why it’s so important to replace our sedan tires when they get worn. Consumer Reports and other advocate groups call for a standard of 3/32 of an inch and they have the studies to prove it.

By comparison, you’ve probably seen the wear indicator that’s molded into tires. When tires are worn 3/32 of an inch, the tread wear bar is visible. So the recommended standard has twice the tread depth as a completely worn out sedan tire.

At Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists, we want our customers to know that the deeper recommended tread depth makes a big difference. Stopping distances are cut dramatically on wet Chandler roads. A safe stop from Arizona freeway speeds with 4/32 of an inch of tread would result in a crash with worn out tires.

There’s an easy way to tell when a tire’s worn to 4/32 of an inch. Just insert a quarter into the tread. Put it in upside down. If the tread doesn’t cover George Washington’s hairline, it’s time to replace your sedan tires. With a Canadian quarter, the tread should cover the numbers in the year stamp.

Many Chandler car owners have heard of this technique using a penny and Abe Lincoln’s head. That measure gives you 2/32 of an inch – half the suggested amount. Of course, sedan tires are a big ticket item. Most of us in Chandler want to get as many miles out of them as we can. But there’s a real safety trade-off. It’s your choice.

Most Phoenix drivers wait for their air conditioning to fail before they service it at Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists. That’s because many Phoenix and Glendale motorists don’t really understand that automotive air conditioners need periodic service. Let me share some of the reasons why they fail.

First, like every machine, the sedan air conditioner parts need lubrication. The lubricant is actually mixed in with the refrigerant (that’s the stuff that makes the air cool). So sometimes, even though the air conditioner is still making cool air, the oil that lubricates the parts has just been used up: and unlubricated parts can fail in all Arizona cars.

Now here’s a tip for Phoenix drivers: You should run your air conditioner every so often during Arizona winters. This circulates the lubricant to help keep the seals from drying out.

The air conditioner actually removes some of the moisture in the air. So if you have trouble with fogging on your windshield during Arizona winters or during a rain storm, running the A/C on the defrost setting should help. Now on some Phoenix cars you can’t run the A/C at the same time as the defroster. Don’t ask me why, but I suspect lawyers were involved.

Also, air and water can get into the A/C system. That can reduce the efficiency of the system and also lead to corrosion that causes damage. Phoenix drivers should periodically purge the system and replace the refrigerant to clear out the air and water.

Phoenix drivers should be aware of early warning signs of trouble: One might be that the air’s not as cold as it used to be. You may hear an unusual noise when the A/C cycles on. Those are signs to get your vehicle into Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists in Phoenix before the damage gets worse.

So following the recommended service intervals in your sedan owner’s manual can help prevent mechanical failure of your air conditioning system. You’re A/C system contains some expensive components like the compressor, condenser, dryer, etc. Anything Scottsdale and Glendale car owners can do to lengthen the life of their A/C is well worth it.

Looking at getting some new tires? The choices at Glendale tire stores can be a little overwhelming. Suppose you have an SUV and are trying to decide between all season tires or some that are also rated for off-highway. Do you get off the payment on the outskirts of Glendale more than most? If so, some additional off-road traction would be nice.

Maybe the real reason for wanting those off-highway tires is that they look cool. Well there’s nothing wrong with that. If you make sure that you’ve got your functional needs covered with your selection, then you can have some fun with where you go from there.

Let’s suppose you zip around Glendale in a sporty car. You may like to run a high-performance summer tire when the weather’s good. When Arizona weather turns cold, you can put on high-performance winter tires. For the kind of driving you like to do, you want full-on performance tires. All-season tires are naturally a compromise that works well for most Glendale drivers, but since you have a choice, go for dedicated summer and winter tires.

When it’s time for new tires, visit with a knowledgeable Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists tire professional. Describe your needs and wants. He’ll come up with some selections for you to discuss. And once you settle on a type of tire, there are options for special needs: like pulling a trailer or carrying heavy loads.

Tires are one of the biggest purchases for Glendale drivers. With so many choices, you’ll be able to get what’s best for you. Take their time. And don’t worry about what’s in stock. If you want something that isn’t here at Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists, manager Howard Fleischmann can order it. Chances are you’ll be rolling on your new tires in a couple of days.

When your sedan breaks down, or just needs some routine service, you might get a little nervous. Your car’s so important to your life in Glendale, you need to back on the road as soon as possible – with the problem fixed right the first time.

If you’ve ever checked into some of the technician training Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists professionals receive, you may be surprised at how much knowledge and skill goes into diagnosing and repairing a modern car. Let me give you some perspective. Today there are four cylinder engines that make more power than the V-8’s in luxury cars twenty years ago. I mean a new V-6 Toyota Camry could beat Sonny Crocket’s Ferrari in a race to sixty.

Our engines are more and more powerful and at the same time their fuel economy keeps inching up – even with steep Glendale gas prices. And they’re so reliable. This is all due to engineering. But the advances come at the price of simplicity. The modern cars driving around Glendale roads are so much more complex from a mechanical standpoint that it makes your head spin – not to mention the electronics.

Some cars have several networked computers controlling most of the engine functions and many other vehicle functions as well. Glendale motorists take all of this sophistication for granted – but somebody has to fix it when it breaks. It’s a real challenge for Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists technicians to keep up, but we work hard to stay ahead of the technology. It requires a high level of commitment on the part of the technician and the Glendale service center as well.

In addition to the training, there’s the financial commitment to purchase the diagnostic and repair tools. Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists technicians receive training through a combination of formal classroom training, training provided at Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists by parts and equipment manufacturers, on-line courses and home study courses.

There are many independent certifications available at Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists all the way up to Master Technician. The ability to repair your sedan requires a strong combination of training and resources. No one can know everything, so Glendale auto service centers subscribe to data services, technical libraries and even on-line communities that can help them when they run into a difficult problem.

It’s like those medical diagnosis shows on TV. Here are the symptoms – what’s the diagnosis and treatment? Diagnosis is every bit as much an art as a science. At Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists, we want everything to be simple, straightforward and cheap – but sometimes it just isn’t.

So try to be more relaxed next time you bring us your sedan. You’re in good hands.

Flats, blow outs, skids and longer stopping distances can all be the result of Phoenix folks driving around on under-inflated tires. Now, it’s hard to tell when a radial tire is under-inflated. If your manufacturer recommends 35 pounds of pressure, your sedan tire’s considered significantly under inflated at 26 pounds. The tire may not look low until it gets below 20 pounds.

New laws required manufacturers to include a Tire Pressure Monitoring System – or TPMS system – in all cars and light trucks by the 2008 model year. The system has a dashboard mounted warning light that goes off if one or more of the tires falls 25% below manufacturer’s pressure recommendations.

This technology has been used by Phoenix race car drivers for years. They are able to head off problems from under inflation by closely monitoring tire pressure on the track. It’s up to your car’s manufacturer to determine which of many TPMS systems available they’ll use to comply with the law.

Obviously, all of this doesn’t come free for Phoenix drivers. U.S. government studies have estimated the net costs. Of course, the TPMS system itself will cost something. Maintaining the system will have a cost, replacement of worn or broken parts and tire repair cost increases.

The costs are partially offset by savings in fuel and tire wear. There’s also a saving in property damage and travel delay. The net cost is estimated to be between $27 and $100. The government predicts fewer fatal accidents. They estimate that it will cost between three and nine million dollars for every life saved.

Your safety has always been a concern at Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists. We want you on the road and accident free. We’ve traditionally provided things like tire rotations, snow tire mounting and flat fixes at a very low cost. We’ve been able to quickly and cheaply provide the service, and pass the low cost on to you as an expression of our good will.

That’s why we’re concerned about how you’ll perceive the changes that this new law will force. Every time a tire is changed: taken off to fix a flat, a new tire installed, a snow tire mounted; the Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists service technician is now going to have to deal with the TPMS system.

Even a simple tire rotation will require that the monitor be reprogrammed to the new location of each tire. When a car battery is disconnected, the TPMS system will need to be reprogrammed. TPMS sensor batteries will need to be changed and failed parts replaced.

Like all other Phoenix service centers, here at Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists we’ve had to purchase new scanning equipment to work with the TPMS sensors and to update expensive tire change equipment to better service wheels equipped with the new monitoring systems. Our Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists service technicians have been thoroughly trained on many systems and new tire-changing techniques. All of this adds up to significantly increased cost to perform what was once a very inexpensive service for you.

So when you start so see the cost of tire changes, flat repairs and rotations going up at Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists, please keep in mind that it’s because of government mandated safety equipment. We want to keep you safely on the road – and we’re committed to doing it at a fair price. This new safety equipment will help you avoid the most common types of vehicle failure in Phoenix, and possibly a catastrophic accident.

In very simple terms, a fuel injector is a valve that squirts fuel into your sedan engine. Your engine control computer tells the fuel injector how much fuel to deliver as well as the precise time it should be delivered. Of course this happens thousands of times a minute in every single fuel-injected car driving down Scottsdale, Glendale, and Chandler roads.

Most fuel injectors for gas engines are known in the Phoenix auto industry as port fuel injectors because they deliver the fuel to a port just outside the cylinder. The fuel pump provides pressure needed to squirt the right amount of fuel into the engine.

A few auto makers have recently introduced gas direct injection systems on some engines. They are now available at some Phoenix dealerships. These systems inject the gas directly into the cylinders under very high pressure – many times the pressure of port injection systems.

Although more complicated, direct injection technology promises greater power with improved fuel economy for gas-poor Scottsdale, Glendale, and Chandler commuters. Arizona motorists can expect to see more of it in the future.

High temperatures under your sedan hood and variations in Phoenix gas quality cause fuel injectors to be fouled with wax, dirt, water, additives and carbon. Injectors can become partially clogged, preventing them from delivering the proper amount of fuel at the correct pressure.

When injectors are dirty, the fuel doesn’t burn as efficiently resulting in poor fuel economy and loss of power. So it’s important for Phoenix drivers keep their fuel injectors clean.

Your Phoenix Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists service center can perform a fuel system service for you in which the fuel injectors are cleaned so that they operate properly and deliver the right amount of fuel at the right time.

Proper maintenance of your sedan fuel system means that you will spend less on gas, enjoy strong performance and prevent costly Phoenix repair bills down the road.

Some Phoenix motorists are confused by Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists charges for diagnostic services for a vehicle repair. Many services at Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists and other Phoenix automotive repair shops include diagnostic fees.

When you take your laptop into a Phoenix computer repair shop for a problem you’ll likely have to leave a deposit for diagnostics. When we visit our Scottsdale doctor for a medical problem, we’re paying him to diagnose our ailment and of course for the tests that go along with it.

So receiving a diagnostic charge at Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists for a tricky automotive problem shouldn’t be a surprise. In the Phoenix area, automotive diagnostics can cover quite a range. If you hear a noise in your sedan brakes when you slow down in rush-hour traffic on a busy Arizona expressway, you pull off 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 sedan engine, Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists diagnosis may be much more involved.

Much of the Phoenix public’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 Scottsdale, Glendale, and Chandler drivers that the trouble code tells the Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists technician exactly what’s wrong. Why then is there a diagnostic charge, the scanner just gave the diagnosis?

Reality is more involved than that. The computer monitors many sensors throughout the vehicle. When one of these sensors has a reading that’s out of parameters, the computer will record a trouble code and turn on the check engine light.

The sedan computer’s trouble code just tells the Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists technician what engine parameter is out of range – not what’s causing it. The technician needs to determine the underlying problem that’s causing the symptom.

There are many problems that could cause a troublesome sensor reading for Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists Phoenix customers. The Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists technician makes a list of the most likely causes and begins tracking down the source of the problem.

Phoenix service centers subscribe to databases that document possible causes for a given trouble code. They outline procedures for confirming a diagnosis and provide the documented fix. These databases are specific to each vehicle and engine combination.

Some diagnoses are quick and easy. Others are more involved and difficult. Of course Community Tire and Automotive Service Specialists wants to figure out what’s wrong with your sedan and get you back on the road as quickly as possible.