Are your brakes trying to warn you of trouble when you leave your McHenry home in your car, truck or SUV?

Squeak! Squeak! Grind! Grind!

Are your brakes trying to tell you something.

Hearing some noises, you may want to have
your brakes checked.

Those are likely the sounds of brakes on your car, truck or SUV as you roll down the road leaving your McHenry driveway. It’s an important message your brakes are trying to communicate to you.

Your brakes are trying to tell you that they may have a problem. Your brake pads may be getting dangerously thin. Even your rotors or drums may be showing signs of scoring where grooves that shouldn’t be there are cut into the metal.

Brakes are remarkably resilient. You can drive on your brakes for a long, long time before they require attention. For instance, brake pads can generally last up to 70,000 miles.

Considering that the average American driver drives 13,662 miles per year (about 37 miles per day), you may be able to drive for more than five years before you need to have your brake lines replaced.

Of course, how you drive is another factor.

If you’re frequently slamming on the brakes or coming to hard stops, you may wear your brakes out faster.

The point is that, however you drive, your brakes will eventually require attention. And when your brakes start making those squeaking and grinding sounds, that’s one way to recognize the need to have your brakes checked.

The worst way to realize you need to have your brakes checked is for your brakes to fail. That’s a terrible way to discover your brakes are no longer up to the job. It’s a costly way to discover your brakes have gone beyond their useful service. It can be costly and even painful. But, fortunately, that doesn’t happen often.

Usually, drivers start to recognize the signs before the brakes fail completely.

Fortunately, it’s not a big deal to have your brakes checked. In fact, it’s usually as simple as asking your trusted auto repair shop to check your brakes while you have the car, truck of SUV in for an oil change.

Considering that you should be having the oil changed every few months, this is an excellent way to stay on top of your brakes while making sure they’re there when you need them. And you can have other mechanical parts checked at the same time, such as the steering and suspension.

There isn’t any part of your car, truck of SUV that is more important than your brakes. And it’s comforting to know you have good brakes every time you leave your McHenry driveway.

Comments

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...

Performance Unlimited Blog

Search This Blog