Scottsbluff Auto Repair

If you drive a vehicle with a gasoline engine, thank the spark plugs for igniting the gasoline/air mixture in each cylinder that keeps your vehicle traveling smoothly down the road every day.  Your spark plugs work hard, firing thousands of times in a well-choreographed order, and you usually don't pay much attention to them until one of them stops working the way it should. Signs that spark plugs are wearing out include: Engine runs more roughly than it did Vehicle doesn't start as easily as it used to Vehicle hesitates when you press on the accelerator Your fuel economy has gotten worse When a spark plug stops working altogether, you will find your engine has likely lost a lot of its power and isn't running smoothly.  Your Check Engine light may  come on.  Then it's time to head to come to our service center to have it diagnosed. If your plugs need to be replaced, they're usually done all at the same time. And if your vehicle has spark plug wires, experts recomm ... read more

Seems like these days, we're hearing about more and more electric or hybrid vehicles.  Keep in mind that conventional gasoline internal combustion vehicles have important electrical components, too, and it's important to make sure they're operating at their peak. In a vehicle with a gasoline engine, the part that keeps the battery charged is the alternator.  It converts the mechanical energy created by the engine into electrical power.  To do that, a shaft in the alternator has a pulley on one end that's driven by a belt that is turned by the engine.  A series of magnets then spins around coiled wires and it creates alternating current, or electricity. Your vehicle uses that to charge the battery that, in turn, keeps other electrical components in your vehicle working. Here are a few signs that the alternator isn't doing its job right.  The battery keeps going dead, your instrument panel's battery light is on (it looks like a rectangle with a - and + inside and ... read more

Warm weather can bring severe storms, and when the rain is coming down hard, that's one time you really need to be able to see as clearly as possible out your windshield.  Having wiper blades that are fit for the job are important to maintain that safe view. Maybe you live in a climate where you use blades made for winter weather and you have haven't changed them since the weather changed.  Those blades are made of heavier materials and don't work as well in warmer temperatures. Blades made for warm temperatures are lighter and clear water better in the warmer months. The general rule of thumb is you should change your blades every six months, but if you use them a lot, you might have to change them more often.  A couple of signs that your blades need changing? If you are seeing streaks on the glass or hearing a chattering sound when your wipers are working, time for a new pair. Wiper blades have cleaning windshields on vehicles for more than 100 years.  The origina ... read more

One of the most important things you can do to keep your vehicle running safely is to make sure your tires are properly inflated.  If one or more is vastly over- or underinflated, that has the potential to cause major handling problems and may result in a dangerous accident. All vehicles in recent years are equipped with Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems, or TPMS.  One system uses small sensors in the tires that continually check the pressure in each tire.  That sensor sends a signal to computers in your vehicle which turns on an instrument panel light warning of low pressure when at least one is very low. Or it may update a numeric reading on your instrument panel which gives you an approximation of how many PSI (pounds per square inch) of air is in each tire.  Another system works with your antilock brake system to measure the size of your vehicle’s tires.  When one wheel is going faster than another, it will spin faster. A computer sees that and alerts ... read more