This a well-known term in our trade. It is used for services such as fuel injector cleaning, crankcase flushes, etc. etc. These are services of little or no value and services you will not find recommended in the maintenance schedule that your vehicle manufacturer provides. There is nothing to stop a dealership from writing its own maintenance schedule that looks very official and which is loaded with “wallet flushes.” When an oil and filter change is promoted for $19 – $39, the facility that offers it loses money unless they can use the cheap oil and filter changes to sell other services which are, all too often, “wallet flushes.” Don’s Automotive does not condone “wallet flushing,” and does not give away oil and filter changes as a marketing strategy. We price our oil and filter changes at a realistic level for professional service and ethical advice about your car’s service needs. Some people like this, some people don’t. If you choose to take advantage of loss-leader pricing for an oil and filter change, please consult your owner’s manual service schedule when additional services are recommended.
Monthly Archives: March 2013
Took me long enough …
… but this web site WILL be brought up to date.
I am reorganizing the front end with links away from Don’s Automotive to stock car racing (don’t look for much new in that — I am retired), cycling, and my passion for playing or refurbishing 100 year old full size upright pianos. I just had a huge block on getting started maintaining it again, but here we go.
You are in good hands
3-09-2013 —
I will soon post bios and pix of my three young guys that comprise by far the best team Don’s Automotive has ever had. Trust me! Anyway, you will have to do so more and more. I now come in only three days a week, and one of these days that will become two and etc. Tony, Brandon and Nick are human and have been known to make a mistake, but so have I! They are not half as grumpy as I am. You ARE in good hands.
All you cyclists…
I have become an avid cyclist in the last 4 years. I ride city streets despite the risk of being killed by an inattentive, inconsiderate or even homicidal motorist. Life has risks. I have studied bicycle safety extensively and ride defensively to minimize risk. So often, when cyclist rights issues come up one hears “until cyclists follow the rules of the road like everyone else…” as if that justifies the vehicular homicide of cyclists. But everyone else does NOT follow the rules of the road. Often when I am waiting on my bike in the right hand lane of an intersection I look behind to see if I should scoot over a little bit to let someone turning right on red go around me. Over 50% of those that eventually do so do not signal. All motorists speed. Far more motorists text while driving than cyclists text while riding. When I used to go stock car racing in Killeen I would come back from my Saturday night program about 1-2:00 AM Sunday morning and I swear I was the only sober driver on Mopac. “All you pedestrians…” ignore “Don’t Walk” signs, and cross in between intersections often snaking around stopped traffic. The list could go on and on, but to what purpose? Pedestrians, cyclists, motorists, ALL break the law on a regular basis, but cyclist slaughter is all too often excused because of cyclist red light and stop sign running. Of course it is really stupid and suicidal for a cyclist to run a red light playing chicken with traffic which is proceeding through with the right of way. Stopping at a red light, looking around, and proceeding through an intersection with no cross traffic or traffic that can turn in front of you is illegal but not particularly unsafe to the rider or anyone else. Traffic law violations by pedestrians, cyclists and motorists alike range from dangerous and incredibly stupid to illegal, but “no harm, no foul.”
Even with an element of suicidal cyclists that don’t use lights at night, blow red lights in a kamikaze fashion, etc., all, if not most, of the cyclist fatalities of 2012 were negligent homicide on the part of motorists.
And to set the record straight, cyclists pay for their share of the streets like everyone else — and more. License plate fees and gasoline tax do NOT go to city streets, but support a small percentage of the interstate highway system. In fact, given that they wear the road surfaces to a negligible extent, use none of our finite fossil fuel resources to travel, take up far less parking space, produce negligible exhaust, (there was a actually a politician who recently complained about cyclists’ CO2 foot print because they “breath harder”) it would be appropriate to agressively subsidize cyclist travel as opposed to motorist travel.
Segways on park sidewalks
3-09-2013 —
I have an issue with people in their teens and 20s touring Austin sidewalks on motorized transportation. They are too weak to walk? I have a REAL issue with the fact that I and my 78 year old buddy, who has two artificial hips, were on a park sidewalk headed to rollerderby at the Palmer Even Center, and a Segway tour came at us with the attitude, “Excuse us, move over, coming through!” It really didn’t kill us to step aside into the grass while they didn’t even slow down, but if I had any iota of respect for them their actions pretty much killed it.
The Segway is brilliant technology serving an almost nonexistent need. I wrote a letter to the Statesman about this once and it was the last letter to the Statesman I will ever write. In my letter expressing contempt for Segway users, I expressly excluded from my contempt Segway users who, because of disability, would otherwise be less mobile. The Statesman edited that out making me look like an insensitive jerk and I got a bunch of letters from irate people who had an uncle or whatever who was disabled and relied on a Segway to get around.
Click and Clack, this is pitiful!
3-09-2013 —
http://www.lowellsun.com/autos/ci_22639303/click-clack-talk-cars-get-second-opinion-shocks
(Don’t know how long this link will be good.) On one of my professional forums everybody got a good laugh out of the brothers’ pitiful answer. Any shop owner who does any volume of repair work at all will sooner or later put a vehicle on the lift and when the suspension hangs all the way down a failing strut will seize up. When lowered, the vehicle will be essentially un-driveable with no suspension compliance whatsoever on the bad corner. It has happened in our shop three times and, I am happy to say, in every case we had such good mutual trust and rapport with our customers that we were not blamed despite the timing of the problem. The story speaks very poorly of both the shop that blamed the problem on “air” and the brothers Click and Clack.
An oil and filter change every 3000 miles = money down the toilet
This says it pretty well. An elevator arrives no sooner because you push the button repeatedly with all the strength in your body. Add 2000 miles to that “next service due” on your lube sticker, or much better yet, used the computerized reminder indicator on your dash if so equipped. Be advised, these reminders frequently fail to get reset at your drive-through lube facility so will often come up prematurely.
Remind me to address “tune-ups” before too long — a term that should be considered obsolete for the modern automobile.
The engine oil dipstick is NOT obsolete!
Please! Every year Don’s Automotive sends a few cars off to the salvage yard that could have been saved by pulling a quart of oil out of the trunk. These days, you ask somebody when they last checked their oil and most people will tell you when they last changed it — probably way more often than serves a purpose. See above. Even if never a drop of oil leaks to the ground, some oil is burnt and goes out the tailpipe, rendered invisible if the catalytic converter can keep up with its task of afterburning. Oil should be checked on a brand new car, but put 100,000 miles on the engine and it becomes that much more critical. If there was no such thing as routine oil consumption the dipstick could be eliminated and a service technician would simply consult a sticker or manual for a refill specification when performing an oil change.
How often should engine oil be checked? Brand new car, maybe every 2000 miles. High mileage or any suspicion of a leak, maybe every other tank of fuel. Please remember, a glowing red “oil” light means “rapid engine destruction in progress.” Tires and radiator also, please.
Gabrielle Nestande
I feel too strongly about this to say nothing. Ms. Nestande thought someone through a rock at her windshield, she thought she hit a deer, she was scared because the BMW daddy bought her got a booboo, she “knew what happened,” but didn’t see the blood, flesh and clothing on the windshield, she will never drink again, but drinking apparently had nothing to do with the “accident” because she was “ok to drive”….and etc. It makes me physically ill to think about it. Had I been on the jury I would have held out for guilty on all three counts come hell or high water.