Rockville Auto Repair

With the recent focus in the Rockville area on improving fuel economy, we've been told how important it is to maintain our tire pressure.Rockville drivers know that tires wear out, but we want to make them last as long as possible because they're not cheap to replace. In addition to saving gas, properly inflated tires last longer. Underinflated tires will wear out more quickly.Some people in Rockville wonder if they should add a few extra pounds of pressure when they fill up their tires. Bad idea. In fact, there are very good reasons not to overinflate 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. Stop by Auto Clinic Care to see about tire maintenance for your vehicle. Auto Clinic Care5531 Nicholson LaneRockville, MD 20852301.881.7891http://WWW.autocliniccare.com Every ... read more

Do you ever shop for shoes in one of our Washington area shoe stores?When buying a running shoe, is quality important?Does durability matter as long as the shoes look fabulous?Would you rather have one pair of long lasting shoes or two pair of lower quality shoes at the same price?Is the warranty important when buying tires?When you choose new tires in Rockville, what's the most important factor for you? Give us a call at Auto Clinic Care at 301.881.7891 for tire recommendations. You know, buying tires in Rockville is a big deal. It's a big ticket item so you know you'll be spending a lot. You're not only concerned about the price, but you want to know that it'll be a long time before you need to buy new tires again.And of course there's the safety aspect as well. The tires do a lot of work – they carry the weight of the vehicle and you and your passengers. They need to be up to the task. You want to be ... read more

Tires do a lot of work for Rockville drivers. They transfer engine power and braking forces to the road; they handle steering control; and they cushion all those bumps and jolts while driving around Rockville. They also support the entire weight of the vehicle, including you and your passengers. With such important work to do, you want your tires to do their job well. And since replacing tires is fairly pricey, you want them to last as long as possible. There are three keys to long, even tire wear for Rockville driving: Proper tire inflation Proper wheel alignment Regular tire rotation and balancing The front tires on a car take the brunt of the steering forces. As they push through turns, the shoulders of the front tires wear down more quickly than the rear tires. Rotating front and rear tires allows them to all wear at about the same rate. That's especially true of front-wheel-drive vehicles whose front tires steer and put the power to the road.SUVs a ... read more

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 2/32 of an inch to be the minimum legal tread depth. Two other states, including California, consider 1/32 to be the minimum and six states have no standards at all. Call us at Auto Clinic Care; (just call 301.881.7891) to find out what your requirements are in the Rockville, MD, 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 inch/1.6 mm of tread left. But does that older standard give Rockville vehicles enough safety?Consider this: Consumer Reports recommends tire replacement when tread reaches 4/32 inch/3.2 mm. And the recommendation is backed by some very compelling studies. Now before we go into the studies, yo ... read more

A lot of us Rockville drivers like our vehicles to reflect our personalities. We're picky about color and body style. We'll customize anything from floor mats to window tints to license plates. One popular way for MD motorists to customize a vehicle is to get new wheels.Wheels come in thousands of designs. Custom wheels can add personality, style or sass to a vehicle. Many of these customizations involve getting a bigger wheel.Fifteen or 16-inch wheels used to be the factory standard, but today, because a lot of Rockville drivers like the look of larger wheels, many vehicles are available with 17 or 18-inch wheels. Optional wheel packages of 20 inches or more are also available in Rockville.If you want to upsize the wheels on your current vehicle, however, you should know it's not a do-it-yourself project. There are factors involved in ensuring your wheel change doesn't jeopardize the safety of your vehicle.First of all, you need to understand rolling diameter. The roll ... read more

Rockville drivers know that underinflated tires wear out more quickly. Underinflation is also a major cause of tire failure for MD auto owners. More flats, blow outs, skids and longer stopping distances are all results of underinflated tires.It's hard for many Rockville drivers to tell when a radial tire is underinflated. If your owner’s manual recommends 35 pounds of pressure, your tire is considered significantly under-inflated at 26 pounds. The tire may not look low until it gets below 20 pounds.Uncle Sam to the rescue! A recent U.S. federal law required vehicle manufacturer’s to include a Tire Pressure Monitoring System - or TPMS system - in all vehicles. Many Canadian vehicles have them as well.  The system is a dashboard mounted warning light that goes off if one or more of the tires falls 25% below its pressure recommendations.Obviously, all of this doesn't come free for Rockville car owners. Govern ... read more

So you love your job, and your family life is great. Congratulations! You have achieved balance. But can you say the same for your wheels? Rockville drivers can tell if their tires are out of balance by vibrations at higher speeds on MD roads. If one of the front tires is out, you feel the vibration in the steering wheel. If it's a back tire, you'll feel the vibration in your seat.Tires and wheels are pretty heavy. When a tire is mounted on a wheel at Auto Clinic Care, it is usually not perfectly balanced. So the technician will spin the tire on a machine to determine where it's too heavy. He will then place weights on the wheels in strategic locations to balance it out. When a tire is out of balance, it actually bounces down the road instead of rolling smoothly. Since the average size tire rotates at about 850 revolutions per minute at 60 mph/97 kph, it is actually slamming into the pavement 14 times a second. That's where you get your vibration.Most people in Rockville are surprised ... read more

  Welcome to the Auto Clinic Care automotive blog. Today, let's talk about the effect of tire wear. Let's focus on stopping in wet Rockville conditions. In order for a tire to have good contact with the road, it has to move the water out of the way. If it can't move the water, the tire will actually ride on top of a thin film of water.That's called hydroplaning. If it's really bad, Rockville drivers can actually spin out of control - endangering themselves and the other drivers around them. At best, you won't stop as fast. So how does a tire move water? It has channels for water to flow through. Look at your vehicle tire and you'll see channels: channels that run around the tire and channels that flow across the tire. They're designed to direct water away from the tire so it can contact the road better.And the deeper the channel, the more water it can move. A brand new Auto Clinic Care tire has very deep channels and can easily move a lot of water ... read more

Most Rockville drivers know that tires wear out and that the wear has to do with tread depth. Most of us have heard that “bald” tires are dangerous, but most of us picture a tire with no tread at all when we think of a bald tire. And when we take our vehicles in for preventive maintenance, the technician tells us they're need to be replaced long before all the tread is worn off. Just how much tire tread wear is too much? And how can you tell? Tires are and their condition is important to the safe handling of a vehicle, so it's for Rockville vehicle owners to know the answers to these questions.First of all, it's important to understand that there may be a legal limit to tread wear. If your tires are worn past this limit, you have to replace them to be in compliance with MD auto safety laws. That's why measuring your tread wear is part of a vehicle sa ... read more

There are so many tire choices in the Rockville area that selecting the right one can be a bit overwhelming for drivers. And even though it's kind of fun to have new tires on your vehicle, they're a significant investment for most Rockville area folks so you want do it right.Tip: talk with your friendly and knowledgeable Auto Clinic Care tire professional. He'll help you sort through the choices.Here are some of the issues you'll talk about: One is size – you know, all those numbers on the side of the tire. The right size is . All new vehicles are required to have stability control which, along with other important safety systems, is calibrated to work with specific tire sizes. Your Rockville tire professional can help stay within manufacturer's specifications or program a different tire size into your vehicle's computer.And you'll want to discuss how and where you drive to determine the type of tire you need: summer, winter,  all season tir ... read more