Category: Auto Body Blog

With all that many of us spend on maintaining our conventional cars, the prospect of an electric car become more and more attractive. After all, an electric car’s engine is far simpler than an internal combustion engine. A conventional engine has hundreds of moving parts, while an electric engine has about half a dozen. Fewer moving parts means that there is less to break down, and they are all the easier to repair when they do break down. It is estimated that maintaining an electric car’s engine costs about a third of what it costs to maintain an internal combustion engine.

This is until it comes time to replace the battery. An electric car’s battery will gradually lose its ability to hold a charge. You can likely expect a typical battery to function for over 100,000 miles before its driving range diminishes below an acceptable level. It’s when it comes time to replace this battery that you’ll experience a hefty maintenance bill.

Whatever your vehicle’s maintenance needs may be, consider Greenwood’s auto body shop in Seattle.

As we emerge into yet another new year, we look forward to the new technological wonders that it may bring. Some people are asking, “Where is my self-driving Google car?” Long promised by the internet giant, this automotive breakthrough is an attractive prospect for efficient roadways and reduced traffic accidents. Unfortunately, there are simply too many reasons that it will probably never come to be.

One of the harsh realities is that the Google car would have to run on a computer with a higher intelligence than any is currently capable of. While the company boasts of the over 700,000 miles that their car has safely driven, these represent the same few thousand miles around the Google headquarters that they have mapped out so far. With roughly four million miles of road to map out in the US, as well as the advanced object detection the machine needs to avoid obstacles, there is a long way to go.

So, for the time being, it would seem that we will all need to be satisfied with the occasional bit of human error on our roads. When this human error gets the best of your vehicle, bring it to our auto body shop in Seattle.

Putting together a winter emergency kit for your car is a tricky prospect. After all, you have less space than you have for your home kit, and the more weight you take on equals more gas being burned while you drive. Therefore, anything beyond the typical emergency kit needs to be carefully thought out.

Ideally, your car should be equipped to get you through being stranded in the snow for one day. Your primary concerns should be staying warm and hydrated. Food is good to have, but less of a priority, since you should be able to go for a while without eating. You can’t go as long without drinking water. Further, though it may seem feasible to rely on the snow around you for emergency water, this is going to further sap your precious body heat in situations where your heating system has failed. Therefore, try having a bottle of water and a thick, winter blanket handy.

You can also benefit from having a few other emergency supplies, like sand, an ice brush, an ice scraper, and snow chains.

A blizzard is nothing to trifle with. With a strong enough snowstorm, an entire city can be shut down. It therefore is not the best thing to get caught in when you are driving your car. So, should you find yourself on the road when the worst of the winter strikes, consider the following safety tips:

• Plan ahead. If there’s a risk of a blizzard, try driving during the day. Have a cell phone and an emergency kit available. Drive with an able-bodied passenger, if possible.
• Visibility is an issue. Keep your headlights and windshield wipers turned on.
• Ice builds more quickly on bridges and overpasses. Double the four-second following rule, and drive slowly on dangerous areas.
• Stick to main roads wherever you can, avoiding back roads.
• If you go into a skid, turn your steering wheel in the same direction as your rear wheels skid. This will counterbalance your skid and help to get your car under control.

Should the blizzard get the better of your car, bring it to Greenwood’s auto body shop in Seattle for quick and effective repairs.

When you’re preparing your car for the winter, don’t overlook your heating system. Though it may seem like largely a comfort issue, and secondary to bigger safety concerns like your tires, brakes, and engines, there is a lot to be said for this system.

First of all, staying comfortable while you drive is an important part of staying safe. If you find yourself shivering uncontrollably, you’re less likely to be focusing on your driving and you may even jerk the wheel unexpectedly at a bad time. When you drive for extended periods of time in bitter cold weather, it may even turn into a health concern.

Further, if your heating system isn’t working, it may mean that you are unable to keep your windows defrosted. You need a functional defroster to assure that you can see where you’re going when the weather goes cold. Therefore, though it can be costly to replace a bad heater coil, it is a worthwhile thing to look into. Talk to our auto body shop in Seattle for more information.

If you have an SUV or similar vehicle with a four-wheel drive feature, you may be looking forward to putting it to good use this winter. Between thick snowfalls and mountain ski trips, this is a time when your wheels are working overtime. Of course, you don’t want to end up reaching for the four-wheel drive when you need it and finding that it isn’t working properly. You’re probably not using it over the summer, so a faulty four-wheel drive can sneak up on you. This is why it is important to check your system before the start of the cold season.

It is also important to remember that, while a four-wheel drive system can greatly improve your traction on snow and ice from a stationary position, it is not a magical system that will allow you to speed about like a racer on a frozen street. When you apply your brakes, your tires will not grip the pavement any better than you could without four-wheel drive. Various four-wheel drive systems work differently; check your vehicle’s owner’s manual for the best environment in which to use your system.

Aligning your car’s wheels involves adjusting their angles according to the specifications of the manufacturer. It is a process that you will likely need to have done by a professional auto body shop.

There are many things that can cause your wheels to go out of alignment, including hitting a pothole or striking a curb. If you notice that your car is drifting to one side as you drive, and you need to turn the steering wheel away from the center position in order to drive straight, first check your tires; be sure that they are inflated to their recommended pressure, as improperly inflated tires can give you the same effect of misaligned wheels. If your tires are properly inflated, you may very well have alignment issues.

If you observe a vibration in your wheels, this does not necessarily mean that they are misaligned. It likely points either to bent wheels or problems in the suspension.

Should you require an alignment for your own vehicle, visit Greenwood Collision in Seattle.

Winter is fast approaching, and this is a time when many people like to put their cars into storage. If you plan to put away your own vehicle for the cold season, be sure to do it right so as to make sure it’s in proper driving condition come spring time. The following steps will help you to accomplish this:

• Clean Your Car: Clean both the interior and exterior, applying a coat of wax to your paint job. Apply undercoating to any exposed part of the body that is prone to rusting.
• Guard Against Pests: Sometimes rodents will take refuge in your engine. A few dryer sheets or mothballs can work well. Alternatively, consider placing mousetraps outside your vehicle.
• Inflate Your Tires: Your tires will slowly lose pressure in storage, particularly during dramatic temperature changes. It can pay off to inflate your tires to a higher air pressure.
• Use Fuel Stabilizer: A common ethanol-blended fuel has an expiration date. The gas in your car’s engine will last for roughly three months unless you add a stabilizer.
• Store Your Battery: Remove and store your car’s battery in a place where it won’t freeze and crack.

Automobiles account for a large part of the pollution that civilization pumps into the atmosphere. Fortunately, Toyota is stepping up in an admirable effort to reduce the emissions of their cars. It is the goal of this automotive giant to cut the carbon dioxide emissions of their new vehicles by 90% by 2015, compared to 2010 levels.

To achieve this goal, Toyota intends to reduce the use of internal combustion engines in favor of hydrogen fuel cells, hybrids, and electric engines. On top of this, they also have announced plans to achieve zero carbon emissions at their factories within the same time frame.

The bad news is that this will not be an easy goal to achieve. Even a company as robust as Toyota will have to jump through some serious hoops to eliminate so many emissions. Executives of the company themselves have acknowledged that, without the support of all of their suppliers, all of their dealers, and their customer base, their plan will not be possible. How much support they are to receive has yet to be seen.

Between strong hurricane activity and a powerful El Nino brewing in the Pacific, flash flooding is a big concern throughout much of the country this year. An average of seventy-five people in the United States have been killed by floods every year since 2004, and roughly two thirds of these were drivers in their cars.

Indeed, should you find yourself driving in a flooded area, you should take particular care. One of the big killers is driving into water of unknown depth; it can be easy to misjudge the depth of water, particularly in low-light conditions. Unlucky motorists will sometimes find that the road or bridge they are driving along has been entirely washed out, and they don’t realize the dangers until it is too late.

FEMA gives the following advice:

• As little as six inches of water will reach the bottom of most cars, putting you in danger of stalling or losing control.
• A foot of water will cause many passenger vehicles to float.
• Two feet of moving water has the potential to carry away most vehicles, including pickups and SUV’s.

Should your car become damaged by flood waters, you will want to act quickly to salvage it. Talk to Greenwood’s auto body shop in Seattle for more information.