Pacific Highway Auto Repair

Scratching your head? Don't worry, if you don't know what a differential is – you will in a moment. That fact is that if you drive a car anywhere in San Diego, CA, you have a differential. Whether your vehicle is front-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive or four-wheel drive, you have a differential. Some San Diego vehicles might even have two or three.Not surprisingly, a differential's job is to compensate for differences; specifically, they're the differences in wheel speed when turning. For instance, imagine taking a corner near your San Diego, CA, home. Your inside wheel has a shorter distance to travel than the outside wheel as you turn the corner. That means that your outside wheel has to turn faster to keep pace with the inside wheel.The differential allows the wheels to turn at different speeds while still providing power to your vehicle. Without a differential, San Diego residents' tires would scrub and hop along the pavement during turns like the early cars.Ever noticed ... read more

Today in our Pacific Highway Auto Repair blog, we're going to talk about following recommended service intervals. Your vehicle isn't the only aspect of your life with recommended intervals: What about six-month dental cleanings and regular physical exams? Then there's laundry, mowing the lawn, paying your electric bill, changing your furnace filter - you get the idea.Now, what would happen if you didn't follow these intervals?For one thing, your teeth may get more cavities. You might not discover health issues that benefit from early detection and treatment. And you'd have to wear dirty clothes, be embarrassed by your overgrown lawn and have your power shut off.We all realize there are some things in life that we have to take care of regularly. If we don't, there are negative consequences. Our quality of life diminishes and it inevitably costs more money.Have you ever wondered, "How often should I bring my car in for scheduled maintenance ... read more

The biggest issue for San Diego area drivers is always safety. When your vehicle wheels are out of alignment, the vehicle will pull to one side, which could lead to an accident. When you're vehicle is out of alignment, you should have it taken care of right away at Pacific Highway Auto Repair in San Diego. When undergoing an alignment service at Pacific Highway Auto Repair, 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.Precision adjustments are made to bring the wheels back into alignment. This gets all four wheels going in exactly the same direction.San Diego drivers should be aware of the signs of alignment problems. These include the car pulling to one side. Also, the steering wheel may not be centered when you're going straight. If you see the edges of one or ... read more

With front-wheel drive being so common these days in San Diego, CA, the differential is just taken care of during a transmission service, so most San Diego drivers 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 San Diego customers' minds. It's not uncommon for drivers to not know they have a differential let alone know that it needs service. Call Pacific Highway Auto Repair in San Diego at 619-299-7700 for information about differential service, or stop by our San Diego, CA, auto center at 4306 Pacific Highway, 92110. To better understand what a differential does, think about our local San Diego 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. T ... read more

Fuel filters clean the dirt, dust and debris out of your fuel. Both gasoline and diesel-powered engines have them. The fuel filter is located in the fuel line between the fuel tank and the vehicle engine.San Diego auto owners don't need to filter their fuel because it has lots of grit in it; they need to filter it because it has some grit it in. Any dirt is bad for your engine. The cleaner the fuel, the better your vehicle engine will run.Over time, the small amounts of rust, dirt and contaminants in your fuel settle out inside the fuel tank. After about five years, this can amount to a quite a bit of sediment. This means that as your vehicle ages, your fuel filter has to work harder to screen your fuel: more sediment in your tank means more potential for grit in your fuel.The harder your fuel filter works, the more often it needs to be replaced. Check with your owner's manual to find out how often it should be serviced and how long you can expect it to last. San ... read more

Many San Diego car owners have probably wondered: "What's the harm in putting off replacing an engine air filter? The answer is that not replacing it could cause your Mass Air Flow (MAF) sensor to fail. This expensive sensor is situated between your engine air filter and your engine. Dirty air filters are a leading cause of mass air flow sensor failure – and these babies can cost several hundred dollars to replace in San Diego.Change your vehicle air filter at Pacific Highway Auto Repair when it's dirty. Your vehicle engine will thank you.Give us a call. Pacific Highway Auto Repair4306 Pacific HighwaySan Diego, CA 92110619-299-7700https://www.PacificHighwayAutoRepair.com    

San Diego residents' vehicles have to operate in a wide range of CA temperatures which requires the engine coolant to be able to perform 'no matter what.' Think for a moment about the environment where the coolant does its thing. Very hot, high pressure, corrosive...And all the while, it has to protect the components of the cooling system from corrosion. These components are made from steel and aluminum, plastics and rubber. The coolant has to be formulated to protect against corrosion for all of these different materials. That's why vehicle manufacturer’s recommend different types of anti-freeze for our San Diego, CA, vehicles.There are several different 'families' of anti-freeze available to us here in San Diego. Your owner's manual will tell you what kind you should use. Of course, the automotive professionals at Pacific Highway Auto Repair will know the right kind for your vehicle.It's important to stay on top of this because coolant system failure is the most ... read more

Hello, welcome to Pacific Highway Auto Repair. Today's focus is batteries. It seems like everything in San Diego runs on batteries. Of course, the batteries we're most concerned with here at Pacific Highway Auto Repair are those in our customer's vehicles. Just like the batteries in our smoke detectors or TV remote, they wear out and need to be replaced . This can be thought of as the power output used to start a cold vehicle engine. The number of cold cranking amps you need depends on your vehicle and where you live in CA, specifically how cold it is. (Many San Diego drivers have first-hand experience trying to start their car on a cold winter morning.) The two factors are that the colder your vehicle's engine is, the more power it takes to turn the engine over to get it started. It has all that cold, sluggish oil to contend with.The other factor is that the chemical reaction in the battery that creates electrical energy is less efficient when the temperat ... read more

Nowadays, San Diego drivers are paying more at CA gas pumps. For some families it adds up to several hundred dollars every month. That's got to come out of the budget somewhere. This is one of the reasons many CA drivers are putting off buying a new car. They plan on keeping their old vehicle for a year or two longer than before.Even now, 2/3 of the personal vehicles on our local San Diego, CA, roads have over 75,000 miles (120,000 kilometers) on them. The average age of vehicles is over nine years. And most people in the San Diego area can't afford to be stranded or inconvenienced by a breakdown. So following a regular maintenance schedule, like personal diet and exercise plans, is actually critical to preserving your investment.Determining what to do for a higher-mileage vehicle can be challenging because many owner's manuals don't publish service intervals after 60,000 miles (100,000 kilometers). Thus, San Diego drivers need to be better at keeping records and planning for prev ... read more

  Your vehicle alternator doesn't get enough credit. Though your battery gets your engine started, after that – it's all about the alternator.  Driving around San Diego is a lot of work for your alternator, and as upgrades such as heated steering wheels, cooled seats, stability control and lane departure warning become more common, it will have to work even harder. Eventually this workhorse just wears out. When it does you have no choice but to order an alternator replacement because your vehicle won't run without one. Come see your friendly and professional service advisor at Pacific Highway Auto Repair to learn more. Pacific Highway Auto Repair4306 Pacific HighwaySan Diego, CA 92110619-299-7700https://www.PacificHighwayAutoRepair.com