Performance Unlimited Blog

What will this furry little rodent's  Groundhog Day prognostication about the rest of our Richmond winter mean for your car? Groundhog Day is upon us and that furry little rodent will give us good news or bad for the rest of the season, as well as for the tests our car will face the rest of this Richmond winter. If you put any stock in the groundhog, and the idea that the bucktooth member of the Sciuridae family of critters has the ability to foretell the weather for six weeks starting in February, than this is an important event. Will the groundhog provide you with a quick end to the winter season? Or will the groundhog see his shadow, scurry back in his hole and leave us all dealing with another 6 weeks of Richmond winter? If we have more of the harsh cold, snow, ice and sleet that accompanies winter in these parts, we certainly want to remain attentive to the needs of our vehicle when driving in such conditions. We want to make sure that our cars will start through the rema...

Slippery roads in and around McHenry this winter can cause you to lose control. It doesn't help if you have bad brakes. One unpleasant side of driving in a McHenry winter is dealing with reduced traction on the road. It’s a simple fact that ice, snow, water and slush interfere with the ability of tires to grab the road and help you stop or go. But, if your brakes are bad, that seriously compounds the problem. In a McHenry winter, the conditions for slippery driving are frequent. While it’s snowing, we’re driving through that snow and slush. And what if there is ice under the snow and slush! For days after it has snowed, the mix of freezing water and salt, on top of patches of ice and slush, makes driving an adventure of the kind most of us would like to skip. And if the brakes are bad … OH BOY! Brakes can go bad because something breaks. They can go bad because a part or design is defective (though that’s very rare). But brakes WILL go bad from simple wear. Brakes work on the basis...

Would she still be smiling if the cold of this Johnsburg winter was enough that her car doors were frozen shut? It was years ago, and the young man in Johnsburg was trying to open the trunk of his now-classic car – a 1973 red Plymouth Duster sportscar. The problem is that it was winter and the temperature was below zero and that trunk simply did not want to cooperate.  Seeing him struggle, a passerby offered to help and started pounding on the trunk (deck) lid. Our young man from Johnsburg quickly hollered, “STOP!! I don’t want to get it open that bad.” But what if it was the driver's door that wouldn't open and he did want to get in the car ‘that bad?’ How did the trunk (deck) lid freeze shut?  Moisture had frozen between the rubber of the lid and the trunk opening. A crowbar would not have opened it. And pounding wasn’t going to help, either. This is not something that is limited to trunk (deck) lids and trunks; it happens to car doors, too – the car doors we use to get in a...

You know about that thermostat in your Wonder Lake home. It's the one you and your loved ones disagree on where to set. You also have a thermostat in your auto. But there's no debate about this one. You need it and you need it to work. On the wall in your Wonder Lake home, you’ll find a device that controls your comfort. It’s called a thermostat. In this time of winter, it controls how much heat you have in the home. In the summer, it allows you to stay cool (if you have air conditioning integrated into your heating/cooling system). You have a thermostat in your car, too. You have a thermostat in your car, too The thermostats in your home and your car have elements that react based on temperatures. In the home, during a Wonder Lake winter, when a certain temperature is reached, the thermostat sends a signal to the furnace that tells it to shut down. It says that you have reached the desired temperature and won’t need anymore heat for a while. In the summer it tells the AC that ...