Tangent and Albany Auto Repair

It's week three of school being back in. In our house we are settling into back into our schedule and things are going well (so far). I have a driver now so that is taking a huge load off in the mornings too. This is not to say everything is just peaches and cream - trust me I have plenty of the where is this and that and why aren't you dressed and you're going ot have to eat this on the way to school.  This is our last year of having three in three different schools, next year we're starting the down hill slope and we're at two schools. I thought I drove a lot before school started but now with all that drop-ff and pick-up stuff along with high school sports my car is getting a workout for sure. It's almost ready for another oil change and probably a little scheduled maintenance too.  Give us a call and let us take care of you. We will make you a maintenance schedule for your car so you know when and what is due.  Happy Adventures Heather

    Over the weekend I was lucky enough to take my oldest son on an overnight backpacking trip near Detroit. We hiked in 6 miles to Twin Lake, spent the night and hiked out Sunday morning. It was his first time for this type of thing. Before we got to the trailhead it was 6 miles of rough road that our max speed was 5mph. I am thankful for the fact that we had a well maintained pickup and I wasn't worried about walking back to find help.   On every invoice from us you should have a custom maintenance schedule for your vehicle. This way you know when your car/pickup/van is due for service again. We want you to have fewer surprises (the bad kind) and you can plan ahead. Our goal is to get you to where you want to be whether it's to work, school, shopping or your next adventure.   Happy Adventures Heather

This is something that we hear often, that the car is getting old or worn out since it's getting a few miles on it. W always tell people that 100,000 is just getting broke in. If you're ready for a new car because you have the budget or that you just really want a new one then that's great, but if it is reliability that you're worried about you shouldn't be. If you have done all of your scheduled maintenance and you take good care of your vehicle then it should last you for many more miles.    Happy Adventures Heather

This is it, the last unofficial weekend of the summer. We are closed on Monday to give everyone just a few more minutes with family, kids and friends. The dogs aka the girls will be back to work on Monday after taking the summer off to be with the kids. Oh and we will have cookies too.   I just want to thank each one of our customers for letting us take care of you. We hope you had a fabulous summer and that your fall is just as wonderful.   For those who are just finding us give us a call and let us take care of you too. We are a full service repair and maintenance shop. We take care of all makes and models. Gas, diesel, electric, hybrid - we take care of them all. We take care of your vehicle bumper to bumper top to bottom.   Happy Adventures, Heather

The count down is officially on at my house for back to school. We don't start until 7 days out and that was officially yesterday. Now I will miss my kids, but really I work all day and I don't get to see them so they might as well go to school and learn something. I say this like I have to drag my kids to go back to school, but they are ready too. We don't live in town and that means they don't get to see friends as often as they would like and they are ready to see someone other than a sibling for sure.  With the start of back to school is also the start of fall sports in my house, now they've been practicing for a few weeks now, but our first game is on tuesday. That just means more going and miles on the road. I love watching my son play so every mile is worth it. It just means I need to make sure my car is in good shape so I can get to all those games.  Are you a sports parent too? If so you know how much fun it is to watch your kid play something t ... read more

The fact of the matter is your cars a/c system is a sealed unit.  The E.P.A. has mandated that automotive a/c should not leak freon/refrigerant into the air. If you are adding to your cars a/c system there is a leak that should be found and repaired. Some leaks are large and very easy to find, while others can be very small and very difficult to find. We have very expensive leak detectors that help us find those small leaks, even with these tools we sometimes can’t find it and we will fill the system with a dye and ask you to come back for a recheck in a week or two. The whole point of an a/c system is to keep you cool on your adventures and not that the breeze doesn't feel great, but with all this smoke in the air I would rather not. Happy Adventures Heather

Steering and brakes are the two most important safety components of your vehicle, not that being able to drive and move isn't important, but if you can't steer or stop then that becomes a problem very quickly and we all want to be safe out there on the road. Modern vehicles come with disc brake pads for the front braking system. These consist of a brake pad, brake rotor and a caliper. It works by the caliper squeezing the pad onto the rotor and that is how you stop. Over time the pad material wears and has to be replaced. The brake rotor will also have to be replaced when they are worn. Brake calipers unless they begin to stick or seize are not a item that typically has to be replaced.  For rear there are two options one is the disc brake pads and the other is brake shoes. The disc brake pads are the same as the front with the same components. The brake shoes are part of a drum system and they usually wear at a slower rate.  The same components are used on cars, pi ... read more

HAir filters are important to the health of your vehicle's engine, the air that flows into the engine goes through the air filter first and when your air filter is dirty or clogged that means that your engine is being starved for air. It should be changed before it ever gets to that point to keep your vehicle running at it's best. We advise for the engine air filter to be changed based on condition. Some vehicles have a cabin air filter too, these filters are for the air that you breath in the car. We advise that your filter should be changed between 15,000 and 20,000 miles and some of that depends on the places that you go, if you smoke in your car then we advise it to be changed every 10,000 miles.  Happy Adventures Heather

The automotive industry is working hard on being more "green" we know that we are dealing with elements that in many ways we cannot control, what we can do is lessen the amount of paper used in our businesses every day and one way to do that is to do digital inspections rather than the tried and true paper version. We have gone through a couple of different ones and I believe we have found one that will work well for us and lessen our impact.  How it works, typically when you come in we do an inspection and make sure you're safe to go on all of your adventures, this was done on a piece of paper that we stapled to your repair order and invoice. Now we are using a digital inspection so we have one less piece of paper and the benefit is we get to take pictures and we can send them to you via text or email so you can see what's going on with your vehicle too. Now we just attach a link to your account so it's always available.  The next time you are in we w ... read more

The other day while I was in town with my youngest he saw a car and pointed it out and asked what was wrong with it. I told him it was smoking and that it looked like they had it under control as there were plenty of people around the car. He told me that it shouldn't do that it's not good for it, and I agreed immediately.   If your car is smoking you should have it looked at as soon as possible. If you're having issues give us a call and we will make sure you're safe to be out on the road.   We don't just do repairs we can take care of all your maintenance needs from oil changes, tune ups, brakes, belts, water pumps, air conditioning, alignments, suspension and more.   Happy Adventures, Heather