Daytona Beach Auto Repair

The serpentine belt is aptly named since it snakes around under your hood. It may lack its namesake's fangs, but it sure packs a wallop when it breaks.The serpentine belt powers a lot of engine systems. It runs the alternator, which charges the battery; the water pump (on some vehicles), which cools the engine; the air conditioning, which cools the driver and passengers; and the power steering pump, which allows for easier steering. When the belt breaks, all of these systems shut down.Okay, so maybe you can live without air conditioning and power steering for a while, but your battery can't live very long without an alternator, and when the cooling system goes down, your vehicle engine will overheat. That's why Daytona Beach drivers should never wait to get a serpentine belt replaced.Serpentine belts are fairly inexpensive at Honest-1 Auto Care in Daytona Beach. And they look downright cheap when you compare them to the cost of an overheated vehicle engine, a tow truck, time lost on th ... read more

Daytona Beach drivers may have an alignment problem if their car drifts or pulls to one side, the steering wheel's off center, they notice uneven tire wear or the car doesn't feel like it handles right as they drive down Daytona Beach, FL, streets and roads.When all of a vehicle's wheels are lined up exactly with each other, your wheels are in alignment. Running into potholes, smacking a curb or other objects around Daytona Beach are great ways to knock a car out of alignment. Then one or more of your wheels start pulling in a slightly different direction and the problems begin.The team at Honest-1 Auto Care in Daytona Beach wants you to know that driving for an extended time when your car is out of alignment causes your tires to wear unevenly and excessively. Sometimes the tire can be worn so badly that it will fail.At the very least, those who drive with wheels out of alignment will have to replace their tires sooner. You could end up with premature wear to your suspension syste ... read more

The government mandates a lot of equipment on cars in Daytona Beach, FL: emission devices and control computers, safety equipment like airbags and crash worthiness requirements. All of this is great for the Daytona Beach motoring public, but it does add quite a bit to the price of a new vehicle.Because new vehicles are more expensive, people in the Daytona Beach area are driving their old vehicles longer. The average vehicle is now over nine years old. Two thirds of vehicles on the road in FL have more than 75,000 miles (120,000 km) on them. As cars age, their performance drops, they have difficulty idling for long periods and are more sensitive to weather extremes. Fortunately today's cars are up to the challenge – but they need a little help to keep on goin'.Give Honest-1 Auto Care a call at 386.898.0774 to schedule your next maintenance.Some owner's manuals don't specify service requirements at higher mileage. That doesn't mean it doesn't have t ... read more

If you are a driver in Daytona Beach and you aren't currently using synthetic motor oil in your vehicle, maybe now's the time to consider it. Need more information? Well, synthetic motor oil is a substitute for petroleum based oil. Synthetic oil doesn't gel or gum-up like petroleum based oil and it doesn't vaporize as easily. It protects better in severe driving conditions like stop and go driving around Daytona Beach, as well as in very hot or very cold conditions. More and more new vehicles are being delivered with full synthetic motor oil, with the recommendation to use synthetic for the life of the vehicle. Why is this? Synthetic motor oil maximizes engine power and fuel economy. To see why, we'd need a microscope, so we'll have to settle for using our imaginations. The molecules of conventional motor oil are long hydrocarbon chains. Synthetic motor oil, on the other hand, has uniform, round molecules. Which is more slippery, a pile of ... read more

Isn't it amazing how much of our stuff is disposable these days? Clothes, electronics, housewares, furniture.Remember the days when Daytona Beach families mended their clothes, polished their shoes and neatly put away their toys every night? If something was lost or ruined through neglect, your parents just told you to do without, that you should have taken better care of it. They considered the loss a “life lesson.”But today many Daytona Beach drivers tend to neglect one of the more expensive and important purchases we make: our vehicles. Vehicles are a lot more reliable today than back when we polished our shoes, and that reliability can sometimes make us take them for granted. Drivers in Daytona Beach neglect good vehicle care practices and procrastinate when it comes to preventive maintenance. What we're really doing is heading straight for one of those dreaded “life lessons.” Eventually we'll pay for our neglect i ... read more