Colorado Auto Repair

Wheel alignment is commonly overlooked by busy Lakewood and Highlands Ranch car owners. Often until serious tire damage has been done. One wheel can be knocked out of alignment from the rest by hitting a curb or pothole on Denver roads. When a vehicle’s out of alignment, one or more of the wheels does not track true and pulls against the others. The tires will wear out very quickly and will need to be replaced prematurely. It could also lead to SUV suspension damage. At EAS Tire & Auto, your vehicle is put on an alignment rack where the tires, steering and suspension parts are checked for damage. Then the alignment is charted and checked against the factory settings. Adjustments are made to bring the wheels back into alignment. This gets all four wheels going in precisely the same direction. Signs of alignment problems are: Your car pulls to one side. Also, your steering wheel may not be centered when you&rs ... read more

Hello Highlands Ranch, let’s talk about brakes. Braking, as all Highlands Ranch drivers know,is slowing or stopping a vehicle. As you can imagine, brakes are engineered to work well on a particular vehicle application. For example, you would expect more powerful brakes on a heavy-duty pickup that routinely hauls big loads and pulls trailers, than you would on a compact car. And a Corvette that can go over 180 miles per hour would have much different braking needs than the family mini-van you drive around Highlands Ranch. But the mechanical aspects of the brakes themselves are just one issue. There’s also the power brake pump and brake fluid. And then there are the tires, which are critical to the effectiveness of the brakes. Let’s step back. A new SUV or truck rolls off a local Highlands Ranch dealer showroom floor. It has brand new brakes with brand new brake pads. The ... read more

When it comes to their vehicles, some Denver people don’t have a maintenance mindset. They know they need to take care of their cars, but it just seems really hard to get them to remember to do it. Denver drivers generally accept that many things in life require regular maintenance, but just may have not applied it to their SUVs. For example: the lawn. You water it and mow it every week. And weed the flower beds and rake the leaves. There are other things that Denver people are good about maintaining. Going to the dentist twice a year. Clothes to the dry cleaner. Flu shots. Taking the kids to your Denver doctor for a checkup before school starts. So Denver people really are maintenance minded. They just have to learn to apply that mindset to cars. I mean, if you never brush your teeth or go to the dentist, you’ll become painfully aware of your neglect when you get a big cavity. Once the damag ... read more

People in Littleton have been hearing a lot about higher oil change intervalsthese days. Maybe you’re wondering: What are the key issues? Some new vehicle manufacturers in Littleton are now recommending much higher oil change intervals than they have in the past. As much as 5,000 to 8,000 miles or more. This practice came under scrutiny when four of the largest new car manufacturers announced that owners like those in Littleton were experiencing engine damage resulting from these higher oil change intervals. The manufacturers’ standard oil drain service for particular vehicles was scheduled at around 7,500 miles. People following these recommendations were experiencing engine damage. It turns out that oil sludge was building up. This caused small oil passages to clog and engine parts to fail. What causes oil sludge? It’s a factor of time and mileage. There are hot spots in every engine that cause oil burn off that leads to sludge. Also, water from nor ... read more

You know you need new tires, but you’re not sure what type. You look at a tire to get the size: 225, 50, R, 16, 92, H. All the way to the service center you keep repeating it over and over. You even say it over in your mind while waiting in line. Then you get to the counter and the manager asks what size you need. Then your mind goes blank. Tire size can be confusing. There’s so much on the side of the tire, and it’s hard to keep straight. Even though there’s a lot on a tire – if you know what it all means, it’s actually more helpful than confusing. Let’s start with the size number. For example, let’s say a tire reads: 225 50 R 16 92 H. The 225 part is the width of the tire in millimeters – the width between the sidewalls of an inflated tire with no load. The 50 is the aspect ratio – the ratio of the sidewall height to the tread width. Off-road tires will have a higher number and high performance tires will have a lower number ... read more

Today we want to talk about timing belts. They’re something that many Littleton drivers don’t know much about and yet your vehicle won’t run if it’s broken – and it could cause many thousands of dollars damage if it does break. A broken timing belt is usually a tale of woe. Even though timing belt replacement is scheduled in the owner’s manual, it’s not the kind of thing that most Denver car owners remember because it’s not well understood. Let’s review what a timing belt does. As you know, the engine’s power is generated in the cylinders. A piston rides up and down in the cylinder. During the first down stroke, an intake valve at the top of the cylinder opens and air and fuel is drawn into the cylinder. Then the piston returns to the top, compressing the fuel and air mix. At the top, the spark plug fires, igniting the fuel pushing the piston down in the power stroke. As the piston once again returns up in the final stroke of ... read more

Imagine you've left Littleton and you're up in the arctic on a dog sled. Your dog team is pulling straight and true. You can cover a lot of ground fast. Now imagine what would happen if one or two of the dogs wanted to go their own way and were pulling off to the side. That would slow you down. You would have to work harder to keep the sled going where you want it. The dogs are all working as hard as before, but you're covering less ground for the same effort. You're wasting kibble. The same is true of your vehicle when the wheels are out of alignment. That wheel that's pulling to the side is dragging down the rest of the car; so you push a little harder on the gas pedal to keep up your speed. You're wasting gas. So have your wheel alignment checked at least once a year. Get it checked right away if you feel the car pulling to one side. Sometimes we bump a curb or hit a pothole and knock our wheels out of alignment. An accident c ... read more

Have you ever gone to Denver to listen to an orchestra? The musicians take the stage early and tune their instruments. Each individual instrument must be in tune, but the critical thing is for the entire orchestra to be in tune with each other. That’s why they tune up together. Now this is no surprise; I’m going to relate the orchestra to your car. Your engine has many component systems that each need to be working properly. And the components need to be working in sync, all timed up together in order for the engine to work efficiently. We call this, (ta-da) a tune-up. When an orchestra’s out of tune you get a bad concert. When your vehicle’s out of tune you get bad performance and bad fuel economy. So check your owner’s manual for recommended tune-up intervals. Or ask your Littleton service advisor at EAS Tire & Auto what he thinks. …Just be careful not to say you want to make b ... read more

When your car breaks down in the Littleton Colorado area, or just needs some routine service, it can make you a little nervous. Because your car’s so important to your life, you need to be back on the road as soon as possible. And, with the problem fixed right the first time. We’ve been checking into some of the training our Littleton Colorado technicians receive, and we’re very impressed. It’s amazing how much knowledge and skill goes into diagnosing and repairing a modern car. So it’s not like when your uncle worked on his hot rod over weekend. Today there are four cylinder engines that make more power than the V-8’s in luxury cars 20 years ago. A new V-6 Toyota Camry could beat Sonny Crocket’s Ferrari in a race to 60 mph. Our engines are more and more powerful and at the same time their fuel economy keeps inching up. And they’re so reliable. This is all due to engineering. But the advances come at the price of simplicity. Modern cars a ... read more

With the recent focus in Highlands Ranch on improving fuel economy, we’ve been told how important it is to maintain our tire pressure. Everyone in Highlands Ranch knows that tires wear out, but we all want to make them last as long as possible because they’re fairly expensive to replace. In addition to saving gas, properly inflated tires last longer. Under-inflated tires will wear out more quickly. Some people in Highlands Ranch wonder if there is benefit to adding a few extra pounds of pressure when they fill up their tires. But actually, there isn’t. In fact, there are very good reasons not to over-inflate your tires. For one, the middle of the tread will wear unevenly because the full tread is not contacting the road properly. That also adversely affects your handling. Give EAS Tire & Auto a call today! 7921 S Platte Canyon Rd Littleton, Colorado 80128 10143 W. Chatfield Ave. Littleton, Colorado 80127 Every vehicle in the Hi ... read more