Are your brakes ready for Johnsburg Road and beyond?

You’re cruising along on Johnsburg Road thinking about what you’ll buy when you get to the store. You’re thinking about what you’ll fix for dinner tonight or what time you have to pick your daughter up from her horseback riding lesson. You’re thinking how nice it would be to take a little time off, maybe visit an exotic destination in the Caribbean. Whatever you’re thinking about, you hardly notice the car approaching from the side street. Of course, it will stop. Or will it?

You’ve had your oil changed on the car. You even had the air conditioning checked and recharged. If the summer ever warms up here in Johnsburg, you might even use the A/C once or twice. Your car’s engine is purring like a kitten and strong as an ox. You are clearly ready for the road. Or are you?

It’s one thing to know you can get in the car and go when you want. It’s another thing to also know that you can stop when you need to. So, assuming all those other conditions are taken care of – assuming the belts and hoses are good, the steering and suspension are in proper operating condition, the tires have plenty of rubber left and all electrical components in the car are functioning – you don’t want to overlook the brakes.

You don’t know if that car will miss a stop sign and pull into your path on the way to the store or, even, on the way home after picking up your daughter. If that does happen, whether it happens in Johnsburg or 1,000-miles away, if the brakes are in optimal working condition, you’ll have the best chance to stop in time.

Even if you can’t stop in time, a better set of brakes can reduce your speed significantly prior to a collision. It could mean the difference between walking away from an accident while holding your daughter in your arms and thinking how lucky you are, or … well … it’s better to have brakes that work.

It doesn’t take long to have your brakes checked. It’s not an onerous process. You can even have it done when you bring the car in for an oil change or some other regular maintenance.

There you are, sitting in the waiting room at Performance Unlimited, watching the television while sipping a complementary cup of Keurig coffee (not that crude oil they used to serve in auto repair shop waiting rooms). You look up to see the shop’s owner, Denny Norton, walking your way.

“Boy, it’s a good thing we took a look at your brakes today,” he says. “One of your brake pads separated from the backing plate. That could have caused a serious situation.”

Now, brake pads are not falling off of backing plates left and right, though it does happen. The point is that, if it happened to you, you might have pushed down on the brakes confident they would stop the car and then discovered the car was pulling hard into on-coming traffic or that it wouldn’t stop at all.

Between a separated brake pad and simply brakes that are worn out is a lot of room for error. When it comes to your brakes, for your family’s sake, if not your own, erring on the side of caution is always the best way to go. If you do, you’ll know you have a better chance of stopping when someone misses a stop sign by Johnsburg Road or any other road.

Is your antifreeze safe from freezing this Richmond winter

You still have time to have it checked Well, there’s no denying it – winter tends to get chilly here in Richmond. We have to deal with snow and ice on the roads, scraping the same off our windows and windshield, and staying warm while we drive. Of course, you had your antifreeze checked before winter rolled into town. What?! You didn’t have your antifreeze checked before winter clamped down on Richmond? So, how’s your antifreeze doing? If you haven’t had it checked, there’s really no way of knowing, is there? This car has overheated in the middle of a Richmond winter. But, on the other end of the spectrum, the antifreeze can also freeze if it's not up to its job. Hopefully, you haven’t had a serious problem with your antifreeze already. If you did, you’d probably know. When antifreeze fails, it’s a potentially catastrophic condition for your vehicle’s engine. You could have hoses that have burst because of freezing antifreeze. Worse than that, your engine block may have crac...

Blocks of ice falling from cars in McHenry could cause accidents or damage

We’ve all seen those blocks of snow falling from behind the rear tires of a car when the snow rolls into McHenry . Fortunately, they’re just packed snow that will disintegrate under your vehicle’s tires as you simply drive right through them, right? Don’t count on it. Those blocks of snow are often packed so tight, condensed by the thaw-and-freeze cycle, that they’re anything but oversized snowballs . They’re often more like boulders. Hit one of those blocks and the collision between the block and one of your tires could send you careening off the road or into oncoming traffic. In some cases, they’re so solid you could pound them with a sledgehammer with little effect. They truly can represent a serious road hazard. The problem is that it’s difficult to tell how solidly they’re packed when you see them on the road, left their unwittingly by another driver. Either way, your best bet is to try to avoid them. But you want to be careful dodging blocks of ice in the road, too. You need...

Get out to McHenry Music Festival for a good time and music near to home

Some folks here in McHenry will load up the car and head out to Red Rock Amphitheater near Denver to see a show. Some will go to the MSG Sphere near Las Vegas. Some will go to the Bonaroo Festival Concert to see a show. That’s quite a bit of driving and you’d better make sure your vehicle is up to the trip. What happens, however, if something goes wrong – if your vehicle breaks down while driving there or back? What happens if the show is canceled, as happened this year with the Bonaroo Festival? We’re talking about some serious inconvenience, aren’t we? Wherever you go, whether your driving to Colorado, Nevada, Tennessee or anywhere else in this continent, you want to perform your due diligence and make sure the vehicle is up for the trip before you go. And it doesn’t really matter if you’re driving somewhere to see some live music or for any other purpose. A breakdown can be costly and may put you at the mercy of weather conditions or nefarious characters that come across you while y...

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