Performance Unlimited Blog

How did your car, truck or SUV transmission make out with the Wonder Lake winter that, hopefully, is past in fact, not just in name? Why would we ask such a question? After all, in terms of your transmission, what’s the difference between summer and winter? Not surprisingly, the biggest difference is the cold we experience here in Wonder Lake during the winter. It gets cold – darn cold – during the winter months. And those chilly temperatures do have an effect on your transmission. In fact, the cold specifically changes things in two ways that make life difficult within your transmission during those cold winter months. Transmission fluid thickens: They call it a change in viscosity. When the transmission fluid is thicker, it does not flow as readily through the passageways designed to carry it to needed areas of the transmission. In other words, the transmission may not receive the intended degree of lubrication. Parts contract: When parts are cold, they contract. This creates additio...

Think about what brakes do, even on a dry road. Now consider what you ask of them on a slippery McHenry road in winter. We demand a lot from the brakes on our cars. According to Autolist, an automotive shopping sight on the internet, in 2021, the average car weighed 4,094 pounds. That’s just over two tons. The additional weight of items you have in your car, as well as yourself, mean that you’re often moving an object of considerable heft down McHenry roads at rapid rates of speed. Can you stop? Another site on the Internet, Omnicalculator, provides formulas that can show you how much room you’ll need in order to stop. There are two problems with this chart. One is that it doesn’t take into account the weight of the vehicle that is stopping. If you have a smaller car, you may be able to stop in a shorter distance. It also doesn’t consider that often prevalent road condition during McHenry winters – slippery roads. The lower chart shows stopping on wet roads. But, if you drive around th...

Gas prices in McHenry, as with gas prices across the country, have spiked over the course of the last year. And higher gas prices are a leading cause for the increases in prices for almost everything else. It’s called inflation but you can fight back – tune up your car, truck or SUV to save. In January of 2021, the price of gasoline in the Chicago area was approximately $2.60. It is now around $3.75. That’s a more than 44-percent increase at the pump. In other words, the cost of driving has gone up substantially and may continue to rise. How much the increased cost of gasoline affects you depends on how much you drive and how efficiently you drive. If you’ve got a heavy foot and are prone to jackrabbit starts, you’re probably using more gasoline than you have to. But, if you drive economically, you have a chance to increase the miles per gallon that your car, truck or SUV can regularly achieve. You can also improve the gas mileage of your car, truck or SUV by keeping your tires properl...

Tracking the gas mileage of your McHenry car is an excellent way to monitor how your engine is running and detect problems. When you’re ready to drive out of your driveway in McHenry, how do you know there’s a problem with your car? There are a number of clues: The car won’t start The car runs rough There’s a repeated thump as you drive There is smoke coming out from under the hood There is one of many loud noises coming out from under the hood There are other indications of a problem with your car. But, sometimes, the problem with your car isn’t that obvious. If one of the symptoms listed above occurs, you could have a dead battery, an engine problem, a flat tire, a coolant leak, other engine problems or … well the list is long. You probably want to call a trusted auto repair technician in the McHenry area. But what if everything seems fine. You might notice that the engine light is on. Of course, how many people drive their cars for years and years with the engine light on; they neve...