Posted by & filed under Automotive News, Maintenance, Service Intervals, Service Standards.

When you buy a new car, whose interest does the car company have in mind when they’re making recommendations? They’re trying to sell you a car, of course, so hopefully you’ve done your research and gone in prepared. But what about when they give recommendations about how to care for the car and when to get maintenance?

The reality is that car companies want you to come back for a new car in about four or five years. If you don’t come back for ten years or more, there’s nothing in it for them. They want to be able to sell you another car and push the maintenance expenses off as long as possible. When you do buy another car, all of those expenses get pushed off on the next owner.

We see a lot of cars in the shop that didn’t receive regular maintenance because owners were misled on how often they’d need it. We see cars that only received two oil changes in 60,000 miles. This is why it’s essential to have service records when you purchase a used car – you need to know the potential problems you’re inheriting. Domestic cars like GMs, Fords, and Chryslers can only go about 15,000 miles, sometimes as high as 20,000, on their original oil as a brand new car. Even so, there’ve been several cars we’ve had to install new engines into that don’t even have 25,000 miles on them yet because someone skipped fluid service.

Car Dealership Lifetime Service
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Car manufacturers are typically looking out for their best interests, not the customer’s. It’s the nature of business. As a general rule, the best thing you can do for any car is to get regular service, including fluids, tire rotation, brake inspection, and overall vehicle inspection. You should do this every 5000 miles, especially with the road conditions here in Western Washington, where there are a lot of potholes, road debris, and steep hills. If you’re a commuter who gets caught in stop-and-go traffic, all the accelerating and decelerating does a number on your vehicle.

By servicing every 5000 miles, you’ll lower your overall operating cost. Don’t buy into the myth that a car comes with lifetime transmission fluid, either. That stuff will need replacing if you want the car to continue operating.

We recommend making an appointment at a fully ASE Certified garage rather than a quick lube. A quick-stop corner shop won’t do a full inspection and inform you when you need other work done. That means you can end up not servicing other elements that really need it, like your brakes, until damage starts to set in. You’ve taken a basic brake service, which typically ranges $300-$400, and you’ve turned that into a $600-$700 repair.

It’s always better to perform regular inspections and service on a vehicle, and preventative service is much cheaper in the long run than breakdown repairs.

Posted by & filed under Cooling System.

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Kent drivers rely on their car’s coolant system to keep their engine cool. Coolant (also called antifreeze) mixed with water flows through your SUV engine and absorbs heat. The mixture then flows out to the radiator where it’s cooled by air flowing over the radiator. From there the coolant/water mix circulates back through the engine to absorb more heat.

There’s a reason we mix coolant and water. Water alone actually does a good job transferring heat from the engine. The problem is that water boils at a temperature that’s easily reached inside your SUV’s engine, so it can turn to steam which does not conduct heat as well and is harder to contain.

Also, if it’s freezing outside in Kent, the water in your engine could freeze while your vehicle is sitting out in the cold.

So, if you remember your Kent high school chemistry, you’ll know that a mixture has both a higher boiling point and a lower freezing point than either component alone.

Coolant, or antifreeze, is specially formulated to keep your engine safe in a wide range of environmental and operating temperatures in and around Kent.

Keep Your Cool In Kent Whenever the SUV is running, the coolant in the cooling system is working to keep your engine from overheating. When it’s cold outside, the coolant acts as antifreeze to keep the fluid from freezing in your engine.

All that exploding fuel in your engine creates a lot of heat. Without coolant, the metal SUV engine parts would expand so much that the engine would seize up and stop running. Expensive parts could be broken or warp so badly they would have to be replaced. It could even be so bad that the whole SUV’s engine is ruined and has to be junked.

This is why it is critical that Kent drivers check coolant levels frequently and have their SUV cooling system inspected for leaks. Also your SUV manufacturer has a maintenance requirement for draining and replacing your coolant. These recommendations can vary widely, so check your owner’s manual or ask us at Central Avenue Automotive in Kent.

The reason you need to change the coolant is that it has additives in it to protect the cooling system. As you can imagine, with all the heat, the cooling system’s a pretty harsh environment. The additives keep the fluid from becoming corrosive and damaging the radiator and other SUV cooling system components. Over time, the additives are depleted and the coolant just has to be replaced.

Many Kent auto owners ask Central Avenue Automotive why there are different colors of antifreeze. It is very important that you use the correct type of antifreeze. The different types of antifreeze – or coolant – are different colors so you don’t mix them up.

Auto manufacturers use different materials to make the cooling system, and they require different types of antifreeze to protect them.

So check with us at Central Avenue Automotive or your owner’s manual for the right kind because using the wrong coolant can void the warranty for your SUV cooling system.

Posted by & filed under Fuel System, Maintenance.

Before you or a friend take a crack at fixing your car, read this first!

This article is a paraphrased transcription of an interview with Blake Walker. It remains in conversational language for easy reading.

Fixing Your Own Car
Photo Credit: ** RCB ** via Compfight cc

Interviewer: Blake, it sounds like there can be major consequences to attempting to fix your vehicle at home or letting a friend try to fix it. Do you have any specific examples you can share?

Blake: One comes to mind immediately because it is recent and it resulted in major expenses for the vehicle owner. I have a regular customer who bought a Ford Bronco and decided that he wanted to fix it up.

He worked on it for a while, and wasn’t getting anywhere. He has a friend that has a friend that is a “mechanic.” This guy started to work on the Bronco, and $5,000 later the Bronco was towed in to us.

The guy replaced the engine and replaced a whole lot of components on it because the vehicle wouldn’t start. It turned out that the vehicle had a bad fuel pump. The owner spent about $5,500, then towed the vehicle in and spent another $625. Now the vehicle runs.

After we got the vehicle running, we did our inspection. We looked at the things that we need to look at, such as coolant temperature and oil pressure and things like that to make sure that everything’s operating okay.

The first red flag that came up is that we didn’t have any oil pressure. Well, this is a new engine. We should have oil pressure.

So we started looking into that side of things. We followed the oil pressure circuit down to the engine block. We found out that it wasn’t hooked up, and that the sensor that’s supposed to be in the engine wasn’t there.

Somebody took a plumbing plug and stuck it into the side of the engine, as opposed to fixing it correctly. The computer monitors the engine’s oil pressure. It needs to see good oil pressure in order for the vehicle to run correctly. The computer wasn’t seeing that.

Because they weren’t sure what to do with the hole, and because they had lost the part and didn’t know what went in there, they just went ahead and put a plug in it. The owner had been dealing with this problem for seven months.

His vehicle was with us for two days, and we got it up and running correctly with good oil pressure. To this guy here that was a $5,000 mistake.

It’s always best to just do a consultation. Talk is cheap.

We’re more than happy to look at a vehicle with you, go over your repair options and lay out different scenarios, so that when you go to make a decision on whether you want to repair your vehicle, or if the repair is right for you, you’ll have all the information.

Once you have that information, you’re able to make a decision that works best for you.

Posted by & filed under Service Standards.

We’re going to be talking about the ethics of automotive repair. It seems like news outlets really like hit-and-run reporting; they hit everyone from groceries stores to retail to physicians. And the Kent automotive service and repair industry hasn’t been given a pass either.

Unfortunately, every profession in Kent has some bad actors that hurt the reputation of everyone else. On the automotive side, industry associations and professional licensing organizations are very committed to high ethical standards.

Yet some people remain uncomfortable with Kent automotive service and repair. It may start with the fact that our vehicles are a big investment and we rely on them for so much in our lives. That alone guarantees our attention. And how well we understand the recommendations really impacts our comfort level.

If we understand what’s recommended and the benefits of taking care of the work – and the pitfalls of putting it off – we’ll have more trust in the recommendation. So communication is key. It’s like going to the doctor; If she’s using medical jargon and takes a lot of basic medical knowledge for granted, we have a hard time following her train of thought. It can be like that with your Kent service advisor too. He’s so familiar with all things automotive, he may forget you don’t know a PCV from an EGT.

If you don’t understand what your doctor’s talking about: ask some questions. If you don’t understand what your Kent automotive advisor’s talking about: ask some questions.

Let’s go back to those ethical standards; when we hear a repair recommendation, we always ask ourselves, “Is this really necessary?” Well, here’s the industry standard:

If a technician tells you that a repair or replacement is required it must meet the following criteria:

  1. The part no longer performs its intended purpose
  2. The part does not meet a design specification
  3. The part is missing

For example, it you take your car in for a grinding noise when you step on the brakes, you may just think you need new brake pads. After the inspection, the technician at Central Avenue Automotive says that you have a cracked rotor and need to replace it.

If you tried to get him to simply put new pads on, he would say that if you didn’t want to replace the rotor; Central Avenue Automotive would ethically have to refuse the repair.

To just put pads on a cracked rotor would have been very wrong. The brakes could’ve failed at anytime and needed to be repaired – not just have a band-aid slapped on them.

Now, looking at something not so serious, the technician may suggest repair or replacement if:

  1. The part is close to the end of its useful life – just above discard specifications or likely to fail soon
  2. To address a customer need or request – like for better ride or increased performance
  3. To comply with maintenance recommended by the vehicle’s manufacturer
  4. Based on the technician’s informed experience

Of course, the technician has the burden of making ethical recommendations and properly educating their customers. For the customer, if you are uncomfortable with a recommendation, ask some questions. More information is always a good thing.

Posted by & filed under Engine, Fluids, Maintenance, Service Intervals.

Here at Central Ave Auto, one of the most neglected services we see is fluid service and other regularly scheduled maintenance. This is due to a combination of factors, ranging from simple procrastination to receiving misinformation about how often your car should be serviced.

Over the last 15-20 years as cars have gotten better, manufacturers have tried to extend their service times out. To a certain degree, this was a good move. For example, cars used to need their oil changed every 3000 miles because cars prior to the mid-1980’s had carburetors, which dumped extra gas into the engine. This caused oil contamination, which required scheduled maintenance and fluid service more often. These days, most cars are using fuel injection, which is more efficient and cleaner. Now, most cars only need an oil change every 5000-6000 miles.

Neglected Fluid Service
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What we’ve seen over the last few years, however, is vehicle manufacturers extending their requirements for regular service. This is an intentional move. Cars haven’t gotten much better, but now manufacturers are competing amongst themselves with cost of ownership, which is determined by how much expected maintenance you’re going to need until the car hits 100,000 miles.

When they push service intervals out to 7500 miles, they’re lowering cost of ownership, but also potentially setting you up for much bigger (and more expensive) issues. If your car uses a quart of oil every 1500 miles and your car only holds four quarts, then going 7500 miles is going to leave you with serious engine issues, possibly even the need for an engine replacement.

Based on our observations and automotive knowledge, we highly recommend that most cars driving in Seattle and the Puget Sound area have their fluid service done every 5000 miles. We also perform a vehicle inspection every 5000 miles, which will catch any other issues, as well.

Keeping up with your scheduled maintenance will help extend the life of your vehicle and prevent more expensive potential repairs. Call us anytime with questions or to schedule an appointment. You can also use our online appointment form!

Posted by & filed under Drive Train.

With front-wheel drive being so common these days in Kent, WA, the differential is just taken care of during a transmission service, so most folks in Kent, WA don’t even have to think about it. And rear-wheel drive differentials don’t need to be serviced for years, so it’s understandable that it’s not something on the top of mind for our Kent customers. So it’s not uncommon for people to not know they have a differential let alone know that it needs service.

Call Central Avenue Automotive at 253.854.6762 for information about differential service, or stop by our Kent, WA auto center at 1514 Central Ave S Ste A 98032.

To better understand what a differential does, think about our local Kent high school track. There are lanes marked off on the track. For the longer distance races, the starting lines are staggered. The starting lines for the outside lanes are ahead of the starting lines for the inside lanes. That’s to compensate for the longer length of the outside lanes. Staggering the starting lines means that each runner has the same distance to run.

The differential compensates for the difference in speeds between the inside wheel and the outside wheel in a turn, because they have to travel together through slightly different distances.

It’s a very important function. When you think of it, all the power to get a vehicle moving goes through the differential. Most cars in the Kent, WA area weigh between three and six thousand pounds – trucks even more. The power from the engine goes through the transmission and then through the differential to the drive wheels.

That’s a lot of work and requires very heavy duty parts. And those parts need protection. The differential fluid lubricates the gears in the differential and keeps them cool.

The fluid eventually gets dirty and worn down. Some kinds of differentials require special additives that breakdown over time. So manufacturers recommend intervals for replacing your differential fluid.

Your Kent, WA technician at Central Avenue Automotive will drain the used fluid and check it out for metal bits, which could be a sign of excessive wear on the gears. Then he’ll replace the fluid and install the additives if necessary.

Your Central Avenue Automotive service advisor can look up the manufacturer’s recommended service interval or you can check your owner’s manual. Give us a call at 253.854.6762 for more information about your differential service.

Posted by & filed under Tires and Wheels.


Driving on bald tires is like playing roulette. Though you may be fine today, eventually your luck is going to run out.

The Feds don’t have any laws for tread depth, but 42 of the states, and all of Canada, do have regulations. They consider two-thirty-seconds of an inch to be the minimum legal tread depth. Two other states, including California, consider one-thirty-second to be the minimum and six states have no standards at all. Call us at Central Avenue Automotive; (just call 253.854.6762) to find out what your requirements are in the Kent, WA area.

Since 1968, U.S. law has required that a raised bar be molded across all tires. When tires are worn enough that this bar becomes visible, there’s just 2/32” of tread left. But does that older standard give you enough safety?

Consider this: Consumer Reports recommends tire replacement when tread reaches 4/32”. And the recommendation is backed by some very compelling studies. Now before we go into the studies, you need to know that the big issue is braking on wet surfaces.

We tend to think of the brakes doing all the stopping, but you also need to have effective tires to actually stop the car. When it’s wet or snowy in Kent WA, the tread of the tire is critical to stopping power.

Picture this: you’re driving in Kent over a water-covered stretch of road. Your tires actually need to be in contact with the road in order to stop. That means the tire has to channel the water away so the tire is actually contacting the road and not floating on a thin film of water – a condition known as hydroplaning. When there’s not enough tread depth on a tire, it can’t move the water out of the way and you start to hydroplane.

This is where the studies come in. We think you’ll be surprised. A section of a test track was flooded with a thin layer of water. If you laid a dime flat on the track, the water would be deep enough to surround the coin, but not enough to submerge it.

A car and a full-sized pick-up truck were brought up to 70 mph and then made a hard stop in the wet test area. Stopping distance and time were measured for three different tire depths. First, they tested new tires. Then tires worn to legal limits. And finally, tires with 4/32” of tread were tested (the depth suggested by Consumer Reports.)

When the car with the legally worn tires had braked for the distance required to stop the car with new tires, it was still going 55 mph. The stopping distance was nearly doubled. That means if you barely have room to stop with new tires, then you would hit the car in front of you at 55 mph with the worn tires.

Now with the partially worn tires – at the depth recommended by Consumer Reports – the car was still going at 45 mph at the point where new tires brought the car to a halt. That’s a big improvement – you can see why Consumer Reports and others are calling for a new standard.

Now without going into all the details, let us tell you that stopping the truck with worn tires needed almost 1/10 of a mile of clear road ahead to come to a safe stop. How many Kent motorists follow that far behind the SUV ahead? Obviously, this is a critical safety issue.

The tests were conducted with the same vehicles, but with different sets of tires. The brakes were the same, so the only variable, was the tires.

How do you know when your tires are at 4/32”? Well, it’s pretty easy. Just insert a quarter into the tread. Put it in upside down. If the tread doesn’t cover George Washington’s hairline, it’s time to replace your tires. With a Canadian quarter, the tread should cover the numbers in the year stamp.

Now you may remember doing that with pennies. But a penny gives you 2/32” of an inch to Abraham Lincoln’s head. The quarter is the new standard – 4/32”.

Tires are a big ticket item and most people in Kent, WA want to get thousands of miles out of them. Just remember: driving on bald tires is like playing roulette.

Have Mr. Washington look at your tires today. If he recommends a new set, come see us at Central Avenue Automotive in Kent.

Central Avenue Automotive
1514 Central Ave S Ste A
Kent, WA 98032
253.854.6762

Posted by & filed under Maintenance, Parts.

There are a number of myths about vehicle maintenance that come from a lot of different sources. Some are urban legend, some are people trying to save money, and others are misinformation that’s been shared and re-shared. Buying into a myth can cause damage to your car, so we feel it’s important to bring the truth to light.

Myth #1: Fixing your car at home is the same as taking it into a shop.

A lot of people with tight budgets or who are just looking to save some money may opt to go the do-it-yourself route for their car. This isn’t a bad thing in and of itself. There are plenty of small jobs that can be easily done at home with the right education, like changing a tire or refilling the wiper fluid. However, most people aren’t going to have the skills and knowledge needed for car repairs. Searching Google can only get you so far. If you’re not 100% sure what you’re doing, you could be causing additional damage to your car or even voiding your warranty. Car maintenance is far more complicated than people think. When in doubt, let professionals handle it.

Myth #2: Reading a Check Engine light fault code will tell you all you need to know.

We’ve written a longer post on this already, so here’s the Cliff Notes version. When your Check Engine light comes on, you can have the fault code read just about anywhere, including a parts store or even at your own home if you have a basic code reader. However, while the code will tell you WHERE the car has failed, it won’t tell you WHY. Simply replacing the part often won’t solve the problem, and you still won’t know why your light’s on. It’s better to have a professional diagnostic ran instead of doing trial-and-error. At the end of the day, it will save you time and money.

Auto Repair Myths
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Myth #3: If a specific part is failing, you’ll know.

Not always. Just because a part is bad doesn’t mean it’s going to set a fault code. It’s a big tree of processes – you have to follow each branch and see where it ends up. It may seem like one part is faulty, when it reality it’s a completely different part that’s setting off a chain reaction. For example, if you’re having poor gas mileage, you may assume it’s an issue with the filtration system when in fact it’s a bad thermostat that wasn’t properly heating the car, which means it’s not operating within normal parameters.

Myth #4: Over-the-counter solutions are great for temporary fixes.

Some of the stuff you can get over the counter can help in an emergency, but some of it can also cause further damage to your car. Don’t rely on “leak stoppers” and similar to “fix” your car. One example we can think of was a customer who tried to fix a small antifreeze leak with a product called Stop Leak, but ended up plugging the heater core, which meant the car was getting NO heat in 18 degree weather. Definitely not an ideal situation.

The common thread here is often in trying to take shortcuts or avoid a perceived expense by having a technician look at the car. In reality, you could actually save a lot of money and stress by having a professional diagnostic done. Unless you know exactly what you’re doing, it’s rarely a good idea to attempt more than basic maintenance. Technicians have years of experience, which always trumps HowStuffWorks.com. If you have questions, we have answers.

Posted by & filed under Fuel System.

A lot of gas is wasted in the Burton area by dirty fuel delivery systems.

Let’s start at the tank. The gas tank gathers dirt, rust and sediment over the years. That’s why there’s a fuel filter to clean the fuel after it leaves the tank. A dirty filter will rob the engine of the clean gas it needs to run efficiently.

Central Avenue Automotive Fuel System Cleaning The fuel intake components get coated with gum and varnish over time. This results in fuel being delivered inefficiently and some of that gunk getting into the engine. A fuel system service at Central Avenue Automotive will leave your intake as clean as a whistle.

The big fuel thief is dirty fuel injectors. They deliver fuel to the engine at a specified pressure and in a particular spray pattern. When they’re clogged, the fuel doesn’t get atomized the way it’s supposed to and doesn’t get burned as efficiently.

See your owner’s manual or ask your Burton service advisor at Central Avenue Automotive when a fuel system cleaning is recommended.

Posted by & filed under Uncategorized.

If you’re a regular at Central Avenue Automotive, then you’re familiar with Blake Walker. When you bring your car in, he’s the person who’s always there, managing the ebb and flow while making sure you’re getting the best possible service. But do you know his story?

Blake got started in the repair industry when he was only eight years old. His very first repair was a lawnmower that wouldn’t start, which started a lifelong passion for fixing things. From repairing his uncle’s broken snowmobile so he could go for a ride to improving the speed and functionality of cars in high school, Blake’s always been a sucker for figuring out how things tick and making them work even better.

After high school, he went to college for a few years. Turns out it wasn’t the right fit, since he wasn’t learning about his true passion – auto repair. Instead, he left university and headed to trade school in Idaho Falls, Idaho. He also attended diesel trade school in Montana before moving to Washington, where he still lives today.

Blake and Family

All of this led up to his very first job at a Chevron station on the East Hill of Kent as a service technician. A few years in, he decided to gain more experience at an auto dealership, then with Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors. After working with so many major names and learning everything he could, it was time to make the leap to an independent shop in Seattle to figure out how the other side worked.

It didn’t take long for Blake to start wanting to make improvements. He wasn’t super excited about the way the cars and customers were being taken care of, but was met with resistance when he tried to implement a change. The idea of doing things the same way because that’s the way they’d been done for 20 years just wasn’t working for Blake, because he could see that it wasn’t good enough for the customer, or for himself. He decided to stay on for a few more years to get the full feel for the business and then decided to strike out on his own with full control.

And so, 16 years ago, Central Avenue Automotive was born. He started as the technician, as well as the service advisor and bookkeeper… everything, really. Customers and cars started rolling in, which eventually meant he had to choose what side he wanted to work and hire on some help. He chose the service side, working directly with customers and managing the mechanics to ensure repairs were always done correctly and the shop was putting out high-quality service.

Auto Repair

Years went by and more customers came through the doors, more people began to staff the shop, and Blake became the person you know today – the shop manager who oversees operations and manages all five of Central Ave’s ASE master technicians.

And that’s his story! Now you know exactly who you’re dealing with when you come into the shop – someone with a serious passion for fixing cars who’s dedicated to creating the best possible customer experience.