Performance Unlimited Blog

When you drive the rural roads of Bull Valley or beyond, you may play the radio, get into the groove of your favorite tunes, but have you lowered the radio long enough to listen to your car? Your car may have something to say that you want to hear. No, this isn’t to suggest that, like the 1960s sitcom, ‘My Mother the Car,’ your car can actually talk to you. It’s not even a reference to a SIRI-like voice from the GPS mode of your smartphone synced to your car. This is another language. It’s the language of the noises your car can make – some normal and some indicating a potential problem. The other day, Rich was driving down Bull Valley Road. As he approached N. Cold Spring Road. Suddenly, he felt a repeated thump in the back of the car. He turned the radio down and heard a screeching noise. He could feel a pull in the steering wheel to the right and had the impression that the passenger-rear wheel was about to fall off the car. After turning past the intersection headed eastbound...

Don’t worry about winterizing the car now; there’s plenty of time. The official start of winter isn’t until Dec. 21. That’s almost three months away. Rather than worry about winterizing the car, think about autumn activities you enjoy every year in and around McHenry, such as an excursion to the apple orchard or to the pumpkin farm. Of course, those are indications of how things could get busy later. If you consider the possibility that, with the approach of the holidays, you may want to take care of things, such as winterizing the car, at your convenience now. Halloween isn’t so bad but then there’s Thanksgiving. Are you having family over to your McHenry home for Thanksgiving dinner? Maybe you’re going to their place. In either case, you’ll need to prepare – prepare a meal if they come to you or prepare a dish if you’re visiting them. Then there’s Christmas. Christmas means decorating the house, putting up the tree, shopping for presents, baking, preparing a Christmas dinner wort...

To some degree, you shouldn’t be surprised if your car is smoking. It’s part of being a car. So, the answer to the question, “Is it okay for your car to smoke?” is ‘yes,’ but with conditions. In other words, a certain amount of smoke, and a certain type of smoke is normal. But not all smoke produced from your car is okay. What kinds of smoke can you expect from your car without alarm and what kinds of smoke are bothersome? Here are some considerations: Exhaust smoke from the tailpipe: A certain amount of smoke from the tailpipe is normal. When you start the car, you may see a cloud of smoke coming out of the tailpipe, but it should quickly dissipate down to a nominal level. On the other hand, if big clouds of white smoke pour out of your tailpipe for an extended period, this is cause for alarm. You should stop the car, and shut off the engine, as soon as possible. You may have a bad head gasket or something else allowing coolant into the cylinders. The car can overheat and be dam...

April is National Car Care Month. Awesome. You don’t have to worry about the car the rest of the year, right? No, that’s not true. If you care about your car, every month is Car Care Month. Of course, you can put car care on the back burner until next April. You could also find yourself paying for repairs that were avoidable with a little automotive maintenance. You might even find yourself on the side of the road wishing you hadn’t waited until April. Car care refers to a simple equation: do you want to maintain your car and drive with confidence that nothing will break or cause you problems, or do you want to take your chances? In truth, it’s not just a question of playing the odds. If you’re not properly maintaining your vehicle, your vehicle is wearing at a faster rate. For instance, if you don’t change your engine oil on schedule, the life of your engine is shortened as a result of your negligence. The same holds true for other parts of the car. For instance, if you don’t ...