Auto Repair in Camarillo

Today's Camarillo Car Care Center auto maintenance article focuses on your serpentine belt. Your serpentine belt is a long belt that’s driven by your engine. It winds around several accessories that power important automotive systems. Let’s go over them. First, the serpentine belt drives your SUV air conditioning system. It spins the compressor that makes the cool air that takes the edge off the summer heat in Thousand Oaks. Next, the belt powers the alternator. The alternator creates electricity that’s used by your SUV’s electrical systems and also charges your car battery. All Thousand Oaks drivers know that without the alternator, the battery will go dead in a few miles. The serpentine belt may also run the pumps for both the power steering and power brakes. And, on many SUVs, the serpentine belt powe ... read more

Myths passed around our Camarillo CA community start with a grain of evidence and are then built up with a lot of imagination and very elastic logic. And the internet is a breeding ground for automotive myths. Some bloggers recall the SUVs of yesteryear and declare their modern decedents to be virtually maintenance free and that anyone who says otherwise is out to rip you off. Let's examine a couple of the more popular rants and look at the truth behind them. The first one is that the chassis no longer needs lubrication for suspension, steering and the driveline. They declare that anyone who has charged you for lubrication is a charlatan. The truth on which this myth is based is that many new cars come from the factory with sealed joints and cannot be greased. However, there are still some grease points on many cars around Camarillo. A grease fitting may have been installed in conjunction with a repair. And most trucks a ... read more

Life's full of surprises in Camarillo CA, some of which cost money. A leaky roof, a broken tooth, or an unexpected car repair. Camarillo Car Care Center of Camarillo CA and AutoNetTV have done some research on how we can budget for proper vehicle care. Everyone in Camarillo CA does our best to budget for scheduled vehicle maintenance. What's hard is unexpected repairs. The truth is that our vehicles can stay on the road longer than ever before with proper maintenance. That's because of improved vehicle design and manufacturing quality. But some of those same improvements also lead to higher repairs costs. Let's take the fuel pump. Previous generations were often stranded by the side of the road by vapor lock. This occurred when the gas vaporized between the gas tank and the fuel pump. Fuel just stopped flowing. You had to sit and wait until the car w ... read more

When I was a kid in Camarillo, my dad always made sure he took the cars in for Spring and Fall checkups. I was telling a friend that it's about time to get into Camarillo Car Care Center for my checkup and he said that he read on the internet that modern cars don't need seasonal service. My friend is (technically) right about some things, but from a practical standpoint, a seasonal check up still makes sense. Back when my dad was teaching me about how to take care of the family SUV, most cars used a different weight of oil in the winter and in the summer. But most of today's modern engines run the same oil year round. High-tech engines and high-tech motor oils are better able to handle the seasonal changes. Your owner's manual or Camarillo service advisor at Camarillo Car Care Center can tell you the right oil to use. Of course, you're concerned about the coolant or antifr ... read more

Every Camarillo car owner who has taken their car in for an oil change has been told that their engine air filter’s dirty. Here’s what goes into the determination of when to change the filter: First, your SUV owner’s manual will have a recommendation of when to change the filter. Second, a visual inspection by your Thousand Oaks technician may determine that your filter it is visibly dirty and needs to be changed. Now, most air filters purchased in Camarillo , Somis, or Ventura County don’t cost a lot to replace. It’s just that CA people hate getting caught with an unexpected expense. On the plus side, though, changing a dirty air filter at Camarillo Car Care Center can often save enough on gas to pay for itself before your next oil change in Thousand Oaks. Think about a dirty furnace filter in your Somis home. When it’s all clogged up, enough clean air can’t get ... read more

Before the recession hit, the median age for cars in the Camarillo CA area (zip code: 93010) was over nine years. And two-thirds had over 75,000 miles. At Camarillo Car Care Center we hear reports that those numbers continue to rise. Many people in Camarillo are keeping their vehicles longer. The economy has influenced that, but the fact that modern SUVs are more durable and reliable means that owning a high mileage vehicle doesn't have to be a painful experience. Local car owners in Camarillo with over 100,000 miles on their vehicles often ask which service intervals they should follow. Let's start with the special needs of the older vehicle… The reality is that time and mileage 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 th ... read more

For advice on how to make your SUV last longer, visit us at Camarillo Car Care Center2739 Daily DriveCamarillo, CA 93010 These days many people in the Thousand Oaks area are really committed to making their cars last a long time. First thing: you've got to start with what you've got. It'd be ideal if people started with a brand new car, never missed a scheduled service item, paid attention to the severe service maintenance schedule and had regular inspections. But if you've had the vehicle for a while, or bought it used, its maintenance history is what it is; and that's where you start. Go through the maintenance schedule for your SUV and see what's been done and when. Have your Camarillo service advisor at Camarillo Car Care Center do an inspection and come up with a list of stuff that needs to be done. Review the list and prioritize the work, talk about budget and make a plan to get caught up. Ma ... read more

In our auto video today we'll be talking with Alan Peterson about myths surrounding automotive maintenance. You can lump these myths into the statement that “modern cars are so reliable, they are virtually maintenance free”. Any good myth has some elements of truth. No offense to Camarillo Bigfoot fans, but this maintenance-free myth has more evidence than most. If we look at some isolated areas of auto maintenance, we could conclude that maintenance isn't so important. But other areas would just as easily lead you to believe that maintenance is more important than ever. Here are some examples for our friends in Camarillo. -Chalk one up for the myth. On the other side, some vehicles come with sophisticated variable valve timing. A lot of complicated parts up in the valve train that didn't even exist not that many years ago. These parts are very vulnerable to oil sludge. -A point to maintenance. -M ... read more

So what is the most distracting food to have in the car while driving around Camarillo?Is it: A Hamburger; Coffee; A Soft Drink, or Gummy Bears? Well, you may be surprised to learn that all but the gummy bears are in the top ten most distracting foods when you are driving, but if you chose ‘coffee', then give yourself an extra two points; coffee is the number one food distraction for drivers in Camarillo and around the country. Food distractions cause 25 percent of all car accidents; over a million and a half each year! You'll notice that all of the top ten distracting food items are messy. Messy foods are the type of food you might spill (very distracting!), then try to clean up (a safe-driving impossibility!). If you gotta eat on the run, take five-then drive. You'll thank yourself later for two reasons, one being that you can actually relax for just a m ... read more

No matter how well they're made, cars are bound to have problems with their design or manufacturing. When the government thinks a problem is really serious, they require the manufacturer to issue a recall notice to Camarillo residents and to fix the car free of charge. The manufacturer then tries to contact everyone who owns that type of car in Camarillo and elsewhere until the work is done. These recalls always affect safety, so you need to take them seriously. It's really easy to find out if a vehicle is being recalled. For links to government sites, look in the AutoNetTV>/a> website. Other website include: carfax.com; autobytel.com; and dmv.org. All of these sites have free recall searches. Recalls are pretty serious and don ... read more