Central Avenue Automotive Inc

What are some of the most neglected services or parts of a ve Probably the most neglected services that we see are fluid services and regular maintenance on a car. Over the last 15 to 20 years, as cars have gotten better, the manufacturers have tried to extend their service times out. To a certain degree, that was correct because, for an example, the oil change of a car used to be 3,000 miles. That service level was increased mainly because of the increase in technology in a ve From the time a car was built until the middle 1980s, all cars had carburetors. Carburetors for the most part are fairly inefficient. They d That gasoline that doesn't get burned washes down the cylinder walls and goes into the oil and it contaminates the oil. That was the big reason to change the oil at 3,000 miles is because the oil was so contaminated by fuel, it was losing its lubrication properties. Then about 1986, 87, most cars started using fuel injection. Fuel injection uses a little fuel injector that's The amount of fuel is controlled by the computer. The computer knows exactly how much fuel the car needs and only gives it that amount. That took away the ve What we've seen over the last few years is ve The cars really haven't gotten that much better. What's happened is they started competing amongst themselves in the cost of an owners The cost of the owners The quickest way to lower the initial cost of owners What that's done is they've pushed them out to 7,500 miles, but when you look at the information that the manufacturers provide you, they'll tell you that it's okay for a car to use a quart of oil every 1,500 miles every 2,000 miles. If you go 7,500 miles without having your oil changed and your car uses a quart of oil every 1,500 miles and your car only holds four quarts of oil, you'll end up replacing the engine over that. We have come to the determination with all of the cars that we see and all of the cars that we see. The type of driving that people do in Seattle and in the Puget Sound area that the best interval for most cars is 5,000 miles. What we do at 5,000 miles is we change the oil through the ve When we do the oil change, we also rotate the tires. We recommend that you rotate your tires every 5,000 miles with the oil change. There's no reason to rotate your tires separately from the oil change to make the best t If you're someone that drives from Seattle to Portland every day on a freeway, that's a little bit different. That's why it'so important that you find a service facility that knows you and knows how you use your car and then can really develop a service plan that works for the way you use your car because the salesperson that drives from Seattle to Portland every day is a lot less rough on That car with the constant stopping and acceleration really needs to be serviced at a minim Sometimes you might even need to do a little earlier than that depending on the age of the car. The other transmissions start to fail at 60, 70, 80,000 miles due to heat, due to contaminated fluid. Some manufacturers state that they have lifetime transmission fluid. There is no such they're saying t If you want to buy a brand new car and you only want to keep it 70 or 80,000 miles, then go ahead and follow those instructions. You'll probably be okay. The problem is going to arise in the next person that owns the car. If you're a person that will buy either a used car or buy a car that you're going to keep for 150, 200,000 miles, and as expensive as cars are, we're starting to see that more and more where people are driving their cars 200, 250,000 to 300,000 miles. With regular fluid services, transmission flushes, oil changes, brake fluid flushes, tire rotations, spark plugs being replaced at the correct time, you do all that stuff. There's no reason why you can't have a fabulous running car for at least 300,000 miles.