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The Most Expensive Pencil Ever.
Check out my “Batman” pencil says Johnny as Dad’s peripheral vision sounds the alarm to his brain. Noooo!! One can only imagine the movie like slow-motion scene as Dad drops the groceries and attempts to sling shot himself over the passenger seat of the family’s hard working mini van in a vain attempt to thwart the evil villain known as the dashboard heater vent from consuming the Batman Pencil. But he’s too late, it’s gone forever, never to be seen again, or so he thinks. -
Wait no longer
It seems like we have been promising a waiting area refresh forever now. Well, we are finally getting to it now and I’m happy to say it should be done by the end of the month. Unfortunately, quite a few customers get stuck here for hours at a time and it is our goal to make your visit as comfortable as possible. All to often I see our customers sitting with their laptops (on their lap) trying to work. Soon you’ll be able to serve yourself some coffee and place your laptop on a table. -
Cut by Cut, Super 7 Carbon Fiber / Aluminum Dash
Its been a while since I have felt the rush of air swirling around the cockpit of my car,
but not all the magic comes from the drive. The behind the scenes build has just as much value to me and I take great pride in the fact that I have hand built a car from “scratch” and that car has travelled at least 20,000 kilometres. Not only am I completing an engine and transmission upgrade but I have also embarked on a mission to make the car more comfortable for its two occupants thus I have completely gutted the interior. The dead of winter really brings down the build pace but I have a team of supporters egging me on and maybe just maybe it will be on all four wheels again the summer 2013. (fingers crossed) Part of the problem is that I keep adding little “extra” projects.. something like this.. -
To Buy Or Not to Buy?
Most people would agree that reliability, safety and good fuel economy are the things we value most in our vehicles. It makes very little financial sense to replace a vehicle that is giving you all of the above. Still, one of the most common questions I am asked by customers…
Read the full post here:
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Bob and Phil: Two Tales of Car Maintenance
Most modern vehicles are considered to be superior to their predecessors in just about every way, which has allowed manufacturers to adopt extended maintenance intervals. Unfortunately, this creates a situation where owners think their vehicles are invincible and do their very best to avoid the major services.
Let me tell you about a fellow I met 15 years ago when I first started repairing his car. Let’s call him Bob. The control he exercised over his car maintenance really struck me as special. Bob never misses an oil change; in fact he comes in early for every one of them.
Read the full post here:
http://mississaugalife.ca/2012/08/bob-and-phil-two-tales-of-car-maintenance/ -
The Ultimate Cry Baby.. The Check Engine light.
Nothing is worse than heading out to the cottage on a Friday afternoon with the car packed full of kids and Nintendo’s than seeing that dreaded check engine light. Well, there is the always fun “I have to go pee” my daughters declare just as we enter the highway but thats another subject all together.When this light comes on it means that your vehicles on board computer has detected a problem. The most common fault codes deal with your gas cap. You see, all cars newer than 1996 have an EVAP system. The Evaporative Emission Control (EVAP) is a re-circulatory system. The gasoline in the fuel tank splashes around and creates vapour that on cars made before 1996 was just vented to the atmosphere. Fortunately, we no longer vent this vapour and it is now stored and recirculated within the vehicles EVAP system.
I won’t bore you with the details how this works but briefly there are several sensors, solenoids (switches) and storage canisters that are needed to make this EVAP system work. Once you are under way, (typically while cruising on the highway) your vehicles on board computer starts a few tests to see if all these components are working properly. It seals up the system and tries to detect any leaks. Here is where the problems can potentially start. If you have neglected to fully tighten the vehicles gas cap after the last fill up then this test will fail due to the gas cap being loose/leaking. The computer will initiate the test a couple more times and if it continues to fail it will turn your check engine light on.
Warning, Warning.
Now the check engine light being on does not mean for sure that it is a loose gas cap, but only one possibility. (albeit a very common one) The best solution is prevention, always give that cap an extra 3 clicks when at the fuel pump.
Lou
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Misery about to happen.
This is an example of someone who is very lucky today. Had these ball joints given up while on the road this repair would have been so much worse.
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Rogers TV
Rogers TV.. here I come, ready or not.
Friday afternoon I received a phone call from the event organizers of the Push it To the Limit Autocross series and producers from Rogers TV asking me to be the “colour” commentator for our Autocross event on Sat June 16th, 2012. As it turned out Rogers TV was gracious enough to film our event in full HD and will air the program on Channel 10 in a couple of months.
I must say I was a little nervous about being on camera, I know some people are perfectly OK with it and probably seek out the camera but I am definitely not one of those people. The first few minutes are probably going to be embarrassingly awkward as I was clearly nervous, but hopefully I pulled it together fairly quickly. Time will tell as we wait for the final edit to be shown. -
Car Seat Clinic
All parents looks at their children and instantly feel a need to protect them in any way they
can. Proper child car seat installation is one of the areas where I have focused a certain amount of energy/time to ensure that our clients children are safe. Since I have completed the St John Ambulance (SJA) Car Seat Technician course we (All About Imports) naturally wanted to do something with this fine organization. What better way to get involved with the community than to host car seat clinics with SJA. We try to do this twice a year and held our fourth clinic yesterday. A little bit of rain forced us inside but the day was still an overall success. Thanks to all the volunteers for coming out.
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Auto Cross Season
Tomorrow, I get to end all my winter driving frustrations and let my silly, pathetic male testosterone filled driving style flow freely. That’s right.. Auto Cross season starts tomorrow.
My Super 7 is not road worthy yet, however I can feel that my trusty Audi S4 is somehow trying to communicate with me chanting “put me in coach”.
If you are in the Brampton area tomorrow drop by the Bramalea Go Station (south parking lot) and say hi.. better yet, bring your own car and $25 and learn like I do (repeatedly) just how much driving skill it takes to pilot a car at through a couple of measly pylons.
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