Kelowna Auto Repair

Hey Kelowna drivers, let’s talk about winter tires. We’re not talking about all season tires here, but dedicated winter tires.Modern winter tires do a terrific job for drivers in a wide range of BC winter conditions. First of all, below 7.2 degrees Celsius regular tires become hard and inflexible. That means they don’t provide the road grip you need. Even if you don’t live somewhere in BC with a lot of snow but it still gets below 7.2 degrees in the winter(which is pretty much everywhere) it is vital to understand that you will be safer with winter tires.In addition, they are specifically designed to more effectively move snow and water. That’s the key to traction on ice, packed snow and wet roads. They use a micro-pore compound that allows the tire to bite into ice and snow. They also use wider grooves that run around the circumference of the tread to expel snow from the tire better. The lugs and grooves on winter tires have a specia ... read more

Reports say that the median age for cars on the road is over nine years and that two-thirds have over 120,000 km. In recent years those numbers have continued to rise here in Kelowna and across BC. Many Kelowna folks are keeping their vehicles longer, and the fact that modern cars and trucks are more durable and reliable means that owning a vehicle with a high odometer reading doesn’t have to be a painful experience for drivers.Kelowna drivers with over 160,000kms on their vehicles often ask us about what service intervals they should follow, so let’s start with the special needs of the older vehicle. The reality is that time and distance traveled will take its toll. The engine and transmission will have more sludge. The fuel, steering and brake systems will have gum and varnish built up. There’ll be more dirt and contaminants in the fuel tank. Corrosion and deposits in the cooling system. And seals and gaskets wil ... read more

As engine technology advances, recommended oil change intervals have gotten longer. High quality oil in a well-engineered engine has led to extended intervals.Here’s the problem: With longer oil change intervals, it’s extremely important for Kelowna drivers to follow them closely. Back in the day of 3 months or 5,000 kms, if you went an extra month or an extra thousand kms, your oil was still fresh enough that it didn’t have time to build up much sludge.But if your recommended interval is 12,000 kms and you go over another thousand, you’re getting into heavy sludge territory.Kelowna area motorists absolutely need to follow recommended intervals very closely. And don’t forget your severe service schedule. If you do a lot of stop and go driving, short trips around the Kelowna area, drive in dusty or polluted conditions, hot or cold weather, or haul heavy loads, you’re driving in severe service conditions. Is your dr ... read more

Wiper blades that may seem like a pretty mundane topic, but think about how important your vision is: We protect our eyes. If we need contacts or glasses, we take care of them too. And, well, wiper blades are critical to our vision when we drive around the Kelowna area.We really ought to think about wipers as part of an important safety system. We should think about maintaining safety not just responding when our wiper blades fail: how many times have you been caught off-guard in Kelowna by the first storm of the season with a streaky windshield you can barely see out of? Or with no washer fluid.Wiper blades live outside the vehicle, exposed to heat and sun in the Kelowna summer and cold and ice in the Kelowna area winter. It’s no wonder that they get dry, brittle and torn. We recommend changing wiper blades twice a year, before they’re so damaged that they don’t work. If you replace them in one of your spring and fall oil changes, you should always have wiper bl ... read more

Batteries are a huge part of modern life. I mean, how many battery chargers do you have?Of course, our purpose here is to talk about your car battery. When people come into A Plus Automotive and need a new battery, they’re really not that happy about having to spend the money. But the fact is that 70 percent of batteries don’t make it for 4 years.There are some things that you can do to extend the life of your battery. First, keep it clean. If you see it getting dirty or greasy, let us know and we can clean it off. A dirty battery runs hotter and that shortens its life. If your battery terminals are corroded, let us take a look at that too. We can clean them, and if the corrosion has gotten into the battery cables, we can replace them.Also running your battery way down is bad for it. Things like, running the headlights or watching a DVD player with the car turned off can deeply deplete your battery. The typical battery can only take about 10 of those deep cycle depletions b ... read more