Brake Squeal - What is it and why does it happen?

Alright folks, lets talk about the price of brake replacements and the parts required and why.

When you brakes are worn and it’s time for replacement, when your estimate includes brake rotors, there’s a good reason. When we install brake parts on a vehicle, brake pads and rotors wear together. They also wear grooves into each other. When you replace brakes, pads and rotors should start with flat surfaces so that they can wear with each other. So, when you replace brake pads but not brake rotors, you have a flat pads surface, but a grooved rotor surface.

What happens is, as the brakes are applied, the surface is burned off. That’s the black dust that’s always a pain in the butt and causing you to clean your wheels so much. Well, that black dust settles in the grooves of the brake rotor. As you use your brakes, there is a tremendous amount of heat because of the friction. The dust actually melts in those grooves causing what’s known as “glazing” on the brake rotor and that, my friends, is your brake squeal.

Now, the Squeal does not affect the function of your brakes in any way, it’s just embarrassing. It used to be that you had a choice, new brake rotors, or having your old rotors turned or resurfaced. As far as Mercedes and BMW go, in an effort to gain mileage, they lighten the vehicle in all kinds of ways, and this includes making brake rotors thinner so they can no longer be turned (or resurfaced), doing so would put the Brake Rotor under the minimum specification or thickness.

So, when it’s time for new brakes, remember that doing the service properly will keep you and your car happy with lasting performance. You’ll need pads AND rotors, and possibly sensors if your car requires it. If you’re unsure of what your car may need and you drive a European import, drive on in to European AutoSpecialist and let us evaluate your car’s needs.

Air Conditioning Season

It's that time of year again - Air Conditioning [A/C] Season! You may ask, "James, what does that mean to me?"

I’d like to explain a little about how A/C Systems work.

A/C systems are what mechanics call a closed system, so theoretically, in a perfect world, once the system is charged with Freon, you should never need to worry about it. In a perfect world. Unfortunately, our world is far from perfect.

I see a lot of shops advertising A/C Service for a fixed rate. If your A/C is working, don’t worry about it. If your A/C doesn’t work, or seems to work intermittently, that a different story.

If your A/C is weak, it’s more than likely low on Freon. And it’s not a matter of “just topping it off”.

Back in the late 80’s, when the government decided that R12 Freon was bad for the ozone (a whole other argument unto itself), they mandated that automotive shops could not vent Freon into the atmosphere, so, if your A/C is weak, we have to check the system for leaks. If there is a leak, we’re not supposed to top off the system. A leak in an A/C system is basically the same as venting Freon into the atmosphere, and a repair will have to be made. Now, that’s not to say that if your A/C is weak that you have a problem that will require repair. Over the winter time and a couple of years, you could very slowly lose a bit of Freon, in this case, “topping it off” or servicing your system is all that’s needed. This is true for the majority of cars on the road.

If you own a BMW or a Mini, there could be one other little thing that gets overlooked quite a bit. Underneath the front bumper are some panels called closure panels. Generally in the right side closure panel is the exterior temp sensor. We see a large number of vehicle with the closure panels and temp sensor broken off and missing, and mostly from pulling to far forward at parking blocks. Cars go over the parking block OK, but they don’t back over them very well. BMWs and Minis use this ambient temp sensor when regulating the temperature on the inside of the vehicle. If the ambient temp sensor is missing, the computer default is negative 40*F. So lets say it’s 95*F outside and you turn you’re A/C on the first thing the car does is check to see the temperature outside so it knows how cold to make it inside. If the temp sensor is missing, the car see -40*F and it thinks that your crazy wanting A/C with it so cold outside, so to you, you’re A/C doesn’t seem to be blowing very cold...and that's because it’s not.

Now, a word of warning to anybody needing A/C repairs. I don’t care want kind of car you drive...BMW, Toyota, Ford, doesn’t matter, A/C repairs are expensive, and it’s not all your repair facility's or manufacturers’ fault. A lot of the expense has come about from Government regulations. Yeah, the parts are expensive, but I’ll bet most of that cost can be traced back to regulations on Freon.

That being said, know that we at European Autospecialist strive to offer you the best pricing combined with the best service, so you know that you're getting the best "bang" for your buck when you have your import serviced with us. It's been a pleasure as always, and remember - Stay cool!

Stories from the Shop, or As The Wrench Turns 2

An interesting thought hit me; something I’m sure won’t cross the minds of most people.

We all know about the tragic disaster recently fallen upon Japan. Just the Earthquake alone will take years to recover from!

We had a customer in the other day with a late model BMW. He had a question about the electronic display on his radio. The display uses little blocks to create the words and numbers. After a while, some of these blocks burn out. After enough of the blocks quit working…well, you just can’t read anything anymore. It looks like the car is trying to speak to you in Klingon. We call it pixelizing.

I really didn’t think too much about it; it’s not uncommon. In fact, it’s something we’ve been dealing with since the early ’90s with the first LED Instrument Clusters.

I called a distributor and inquired about the price and availability of the part.

I wasn’t real surprised at the answer I got from the dealer. I called the customer and reported back with the pricing. Once again, I wasn’t real surprised at the customer’s reaction. The replacement radio was going to set the customer back about $800.00. The customer asked about the possibility of getting a salvage unit from an auto salvager. Ok, fair question … once upon a time.

In today’s vehicle, almost any of the many electrical/computer components are programmed to the car they’re installed in. The replacement units from the factory come with no information in them. Just like buying a hard drive for your home computer, blank. So with that option out of the question, I told him there is one other option. I could remove the radio and send it to California where they would repair his radio. The drawback to this option is the fact that between shipping it back and forth, and the repair time, he’ll probably have a hole in his dash for about 2 weeks.

(Now that you’ve got the background, here’s where it all ties together.)

I called the repair facility in California to get an estimate time and cost of repair. I was told, “Oh, yeah, we do those all the time, BUT, the circuit boards come from Alpine.”

I’m thinking, “Yeah, OK, so?”

“Alpine ….. Japan. We ran out of the circuit boards last week, shipments are on back-order, with no estimated release date.”

You know, I hadn’t thought of that. How much of the devastation in Japan is going to start impacting everyone in everyday life? True, the world has gotten smaller. We are an electronically addicted society. And how much of all the electronics that we use come from Japan? And how many repair parts for things are made and shipped from Japan? I am now interested to see how this will effect all of us in the coming months. There are so many of us that expect instant gratification. I wonder how many will want some electrical component repaired and when told it may take months to get the parts say, forget it, I’ll just go buy a new one …oh wait, those come from the same place, you can’t get a new one any faster.

Anyway, back to my customer… our final decision, find a radio station he like and leave it there. Listen to CD’s, or his iPod/MP3 player, we’ll worry about reading the display next year!

As The Wrench Turns: Stories from the Shop

It’s funny how people’s perceptions and actual reality works out sometimes. We had a customer’s vehicle towed into the shop the other day. It had lost power and had broken down on the road. After opening the hood and inspecting the damage, we had found that an idler pulley bearing was failing. The pulley had locked up, causing the main fan belt tensioner to literally break and pull out of it’s mounting bolt holes in the oil filter housing. After making an estimate, I had also noticed they were due for their oil service, past due actually. The customer told me that they had already had the oil service done at some quickie lube place about a week ago. They said they had received our notification that it was due, but thought our price was too high and our hours to inconvenient.

Upon reflection, they found their perception to be false. After the oil service at the “cheap” lube center was performed, it was no longer the advertised price, in fact, it turned out to be more expensive than ours. Also, had they brought the vehicle into the shop, we would have noticed the pulley and told her about the pending failure of her vehicle. See, these are the only cars we work on. There is a reason for that: we know these cars. We could have told her abut the pulley being worn, how it was making noises it shouldn’t.

So, with our expensive oil service and inconvenient hours, they potentially would have been without the car for one day and a bill of about $600.00. Instead, they got the cheaper oil change that was more expensive, a vehicle that had broken down conveniently on the side of the road, then had the convenience of waiting for the tow truck, us having the car for 2 days with a bill that added $750 to the normal repair.

OK, we may not have the most convenient hours, but this is our job, just like you have yours. But in this world of instant gratification and convenience, be careful, some things are better with a little time, thought and inconvenience.

BMW History and Facts

After years and years of working on BMW's, I've amassed a fair bit of knowledge about the Bayerische Motoren Werke as it is known in Germany. These are a few little tidbits of info about our favorite German car company.

• Many believe the BMW roundel is designed after an airplane propeller spinning. Actually, it’s design is based in the Bavarian flag's blue and white checkerboard.

• BMW was originally an airplane motor manufacturer as well as motorbokes. After World War II, Germany was banned from building any vehicles that could be used for warfare. For survival, BMW bought the car company DIXIE and began building car engines.

• In the late 1920’s, an experimental train called "The Rail Zeppelin" used a BMW IV aircraft engine. On June 21st, 1931, the "Train" covered a distance of 160 miles in 98 minutes, reaching a speed of 143MPH, a record that was held for almost 25 years. The German National Railway deemed the propeller drive too dangerous. Due to the braking technology of the time, it was too difficult to integrate the "Rail Zeppelin" into the railway network. The "Train" was sent to the scrap yard in 1939.

• Most car advances that car manufacturers advertise have been on most BMW models for at least a couple of years. ABS brakes were standard on BMW’s in the late 80s’

For all of your European auto needs, come to European Autospecialist at 4121 S. 72nd E. Ave. in Tulsa, OK.

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Our Reputation

We have worked hard at European Autospecialist to build our reputation as the place to bring your vehicle for honest, quality repairs and maintenance. After more than 25 years, I don’t think we’ve done a bad job. I find some of the phone calls we get interesting. I hear a lot of “I just bought this car, and my friends tell me I need to come to you” or “I know a lot of people with the same type of car, and they all come to you for their service.” Ok, this alone says that our hard work has paid off, and we have lots of happy customers who are happy enough to spread the word.

And then I get the question “I’d like to get my car serviced, Can I bring it in today?” or “I’m leaving town tomorrow, Can I come down and get my oil changed?” When I have to, unfortunately, tell them no, they seem surprised. Then when I explain that I would not be able to see their vehicle for a couple of days, it’s amazing how many times I hear “Oh, you’re that busy?”

If we were not doing something right, we would not have a lot of happy customers. If we didn’t have a lot of happy customers, the odds are, you would not have heard about us. Having a lot of happy customers means we’re busy and working hard to keep them. We also try to make new customers feel welcome and comfortable about having brought their vehicle to us for service. So, why are people surprised that we are busy? Or, why are people surprised to find we can’t just accept them at a moments notice? I don’t know, maybe the connection between being successful and having lots of customers doesn’t seem to exist in this line of business. However, if you knew of a really good restaurant or a good movie, you’d expect so see a line or at least be prepared for one. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not try to toot my own horn or pat myself on the back, I’m just trying to understand why people, after hearing that we are a good service facility, think that they would be able to drop in at a moments notice to get their car serviced.

Please don’t let my rant discourage you from calling. I always try my best to get you in as soon as possible and to keep your car for the least amount of time as possible. I understand you want your car back as soon as possible, and I work hard to make that possible. I promise, I will never tell you, “Sure, bring it right on down” knowing that there are 6 or 7 other cars waiting to be worked on.

Is it really for free?

Let me explain a little bit about how our shop operates. You bring your vehicle in with a complaint, then the technicians spend time figuring out what is wrong with the car and what it will take to repair it. As most of you know, this is called Diagnostic Time. An estimate is then written and you are phoned with what the repair costs are. Here is where some confusion comes in. I get a lot of people that ask, “If I have you repair it, will you take the diagnostic fee off?” or “Does that price include the diagnostic fee?” The answer to both questions is “No”

“Well JoeBobJimPaul Shop takes their diagnostic fee off if I have it repaired there.” Or you’ve seen the signs that say ‘Free Diagnosis’

People, there is no such thing as free.

Professional technicians are paid by the time they spend working on a vehicle. If the shop is slow and the technicians are standing around, they are not being paid. So, with that in mind, lets say you’re a technician, your boss gives you a car to diagnose, it takes you 30 minutes to figure out the problem but the customer declines the repair, does that mean you should not be paid for your time and expertise? And what about the fact that you are diagnosing 4-5 cars a day, that’s 2 to 5 hours a day you’re going to work for free?

Ok, let’s look at it from the shop owner’s point of view. Let’s say that you go ahead and pay you technician, but your not getting the jobs, or you’re giving the diagnosis time away “free”, so how are you making up that loss? Most “free” diagnostis fees get hidden in the price somewhere, I guarantee it.

At European Autospecialist, NOTHING is hidden from our customer. We try very hard to be fair to everyone across the board, customers and employees alike. Happy technicians do quality work for you, our customers. You, our customer, know exactly what we are doing and what you are paying for. For me, this is the easiest way to go. I’m honest with you so I can go to sleep at night and not have to worry about any sleight of hand that I performed for someone or any ‘stories’ I said that I have to remember.

There is nothing “Free”, it’s there, somewhere.

Oh, I stand corrected. We will occasionally replace your burnt bulb, without an appointment… For free.