The best way to keep your car out of the repair facility with major repair problems is to follow a basic vehicle care maintenance schedule. It is recommended that you make general visual inspections and stay on top of vehicle maintenance items. The skilled automotive technicians at American Auto Clinic in Albuquerque, NM can assist with basic vehicle maintenance and more complex repairs. Feel free to give us a call or come by at your convenience if you have any questions.
Car enthusiasts would argue that "those were the days". Everything you drove was built like a tank and had the chrome on it so you enjoyed washing it but NO power steering. For most of us, it is hard to remember life without power steering – cranking those great big steering wheels? It was a pretty good workout. Now power steering is standard. The heart of any power steering system is its pump. The pump pressurizes the power steering fluid that provides assistance for steering. Most pumps are driven by a belt that is run by the engine – a few are electrically powered. A high-pressure hose passes fluid from the pump to the steering gear. A low-pressure hose returns the fluid back to the pump. Here at American Auto Clinic in Albuquerque, NM we know that you depend on that power steering and check your fluid & hoses religiously!
Your transmission cooler is an integral part of the reliability and proper function of your transmission. At American Auto Clinic in Albuquerque, NM, we’re well equipped with the knowledge you need about coolers, and the ability and equipment necessary to keep your transmission in good shape.
If there’s an issue with your diesel fuel system, the most important thing to remember is to fix it sooner rather than later. With gas engines, you can often power through a fuel issue for quite some time - they’re irritating, but not often permanently damaging. Diesel systems are a little more important, and parts rely heavily on one another to avoid damage and keep working properly, as well as maintenance and repair from professional technicians.
Your Vehicle Identification Number, or VIN, is essentially your car’s fingerprint. In its entirety, it is specific only to your car. Each car has its own unique VIN number and can be decoded to provide manufacturing and identification information on any vehicle on the road. Date of manufacture, manufacturer, vehicle type, where it was made, and options such as engine and transmission type, whether a car is a two or four-door, and a multitude of other specifications can be gleaned from a VIN number. Essentially, a VIN number will tell you exactly what a car is and where it came from, without even having to see the car.
Cars, trucks, and SUVs use and create multiple liquid substances. Here’s what you need to know about the puddle of liquid under your vehicle, from American Auto Clinic in Albuquerque, NM. There are a few different substances that can pool under an automobile, and some are more serious than others. Knowing what to look for and what to do could save you from hassle with your vehicle in the long run.
Coolant leaks can be a pain - they’re elusive and have a lot of damage potential. Fortunately, at American Auto Clinic in Albuquerque, NM, our technicians know exactly how to diagnose and repair a coolant leak, no matter where it is. Knowing more about where these coolant leaks appear and why they're a problem will help you to recognize a problem and get it repaired before it does further damage.
In the diesel world, "blow-by" is a term you're bound to run across at some point if your line of work involves diesel-powered vehicles of any kind. What is blow-by, what causes it, and how concerned should you be? At American Auto Clinic in Albuquerque, NM, our fleet maintenance and diesel technicians see it on a regular basis. Here we'll take a quick look at blow-by, correcting it, and preventing it.
What is Blow-By? - Diesel blow-by is a term that describes an event of lost compression into the crankcase. Blow-by occurs whenever a burnt or unburnt fuel and air mixture escape from the cylinder and past the piston rings and into the crankcase. In a perfect world, the piston would be sealed tightly in the cylinder, able to move up and down but keeping all the air and fuel and exhaust that enters or exits the cylinder during the combustion process out of the crankcase. As you'll see, this perfect world doesn't exist, but it is important to minimize the amount of blow-by in a diesel engine.
