Best Auto Repair in Vancouver, BC

The tires on your vehicle should be rotated once a year and always front to back. You should never rotate your tires side to side as this causes increased wear and poor grip in wet conditions for approximately two weeks while cutting in a new rotational pattern. Additionally, many modern tires are unidirectional in design. At Vancouver West Motors we always put the best pair of tires on the front axle of front-wheel drive cars. On a front-wheel drive vehicle the front tires carry the load in terms of steering, braking and driving traction.

For vehicles equipped with an Automatic Transmission I recommend a check every 2 years or 48,000 Km. The presence of dirty transmission fluid during a routine check or poor shift quality are indicators that something may be amiss. I also ask all my customers if they use their car as a tow-vehicle. Towing even a light trailer may necessitate more regular check-ups as a greater load on the transmission equals greater wear of the transmission components. For vehicles equipped with a Manual or Standard Transmission I recommend regular inspection of the transmission fluid and fluid levels. The condition of the transmission fluid is often the first indication of a possible problem. Any presence of metal in the fluid may indicate bearing failure or broken gear teeth.

I recommend biannual fluid, lubricant and coolant check-ups. A brake flush is very important because brake fluid can absorb atmospheric moisture. This can really compromise your brake-system performance, causing poor pedal feel and brake fade. In extreme cases the moisture will actually lower the boiling point of your brake fluid, possibly leading to failure but also causing corrosion and damage to your wheel calipers, wheel cylinders, master cylinder and brake lines. The same problem occurs with engine coolant. Diluted engine coolant will have a lower boiling point, which may lead to over-heating. Corrosion and deposits can damage your radiator and water pump.

Brake squeal is a common occurrence after a new brake job and is caused by the harmonization of brake components due to dust, moisture and vibration. Brake squeal is NOT an indication of brake pad or brake rotor thickness. During the installation of new brake components in a brake job, cleanliness and a thorough lubrication of contact points in the brake system is very important. Lower quality brake pads will often give off a lot of dust, compounding the problem of brake squeal.

For most of us, our cars are our daily transportation. As attached as we may get to them, we need our cars to be safe, reliable and dependable. I suggest to people that it may be time to consider selling their vehicle when the yearly cost to repair it exceeds the monthly payments on a similar vehicle.