Winter in McHenry is a test for a car, truck or SUV. Parts undergo the extremes of severely cold temperatures. Rain, snow and ice assault the vehicle from all sides. If the charging system is weak, winter can provide the breaking point. On the other hand, this is one place where a tune-up can make a big difference. Imagine that you are trying to start your pickup truck on a January night when the

Water freezes at 32-degrees Fahrenheit.  Gasoline also freezes. However, there is not a single temperature you can assign to gasoline when it comes to freezing. You can’t say that gasoline will freeze at 70-degree-below-zero Fahrenheit, though that may represent a temperature where some gasoline mixtures will freeze. The point is that, in spite of the ability to withstand the extreme colds a

The New Year is upon us this weekend here in McHenry County. How do you plan to celebrate? New Year’s parties will abound Saturday night – New Year’s Eve. Good food, good friends, a few good drinks: it all sounds great. And it should be, unless something happens to spoil it. So, how do you plan to get to the New Year’s Eve party you’re attending? If you’re not driving to a party in McHenry

When you’re playing Santa Claus, it pays to put yourself in his shoes. But, with only five days until Christmas, time is running out. If you haven’t figured out what to buy them by now, the odds are good that you’ll wind up buying them a last-minute gift that really doesn’t make anyone appreciably merrier; it’s something they wouldn’t buy for themselves and it’s not something you’d

In front of your car, truck or SUV engine you’ll find a radiator. Behind the radiator is a fan. The radiator is connected to the engine by hoses – one a supply hose (the lower hose) and the other a return hose (the upper hose). Less visible to the naked eye is a pump, which is part of the engine, that moves the liquid in the radiator and engine in a regular cycle. There’s also a thermostat that

Last week, we discussed the importance of a good car battery when facing the frigid riggers of a Midwest winter. A good car battery will help to ensure that your car, truck or SUV will start even on the coldest days and nights of the winter ahead – the winter that blew in with a fury Sunday night dumping several inches of snow in McHenry. But, a good battery requires a good charging and starting

It's winter, it's nighttime and it's cold out. But, though thisInterstate battery is a few years old, it was recently checkedand it should start this car throughout the coming winter. An article by Interstate, a manufacturer of one of the best-selling automotive batteries in the country, states that a car, truck or SUV battery loses 33 percent of its power when the temperature outside falls below

It’s all a matter of the laws of physics; when liquids are cooled, they tend to thicken. In some cases, they thicken until they become solids. This is the case with water and other fluids. In the case of oils, they will not freeze but they can thicken substantially. These are important considerations when another McHenry winter is approaching and you want your car to continue running in spite of

Haven’t winterized your car, truck or SUV yet? Here comes some serious incentive, if we believe the weather reports. A blizzard is bearing down on the Midwest with accumulations to 18 inches in some states. Now, most weather reports suggest that, here in the McHenry County area, the storm will either stay mostly to the North or will have blown itself out before it gets here. That’s good news, especially

There’s a reason tires aren’t hard, smooth donuts that slip easily; tires are rubber with tread designs so that they can grab the road and help us get going when we accelerate and so they can help us stop when we hit the brake pedal. Over the years, through trial and error, tire makers have designed tire tread patterns that are particularly good for grabbing the road. In some cases, they design