Brooklyn Park Auto Repair

At last, 2021 is here and 2020 is behind us! We hope that this coming year has better things in store for us all.  If you’ve not made any New Year’s Resolutions this year, we have six resolutions to follow that will help you protect your automobile on the road this year: Be attentive. Keep your focus on traffic and not what’s going on with your phone, or your kids. If you need to focus on these things, pull off the road and put on your emergency blinkers to deal with them, rather than try to juggle driving responsibilities with distractions. Be more patient. Reacting with anger to traffic is how many accidents begin. Give way, and accept that others may not treat you fairly on the road. Your pride means nothing if you wreck your car and can’t get where you were going, after all.  Take a Defensive Driving class. If you’ve never taken one, or if it’s been years, taking a Defensive Driving course can help you rewire your brain to be more a ... read more

The Year That Never Ended is at last coming to an end! As we say goodbye to a fraught 2020, we’re challenged with looking forward to 2021 and remaining positive, even with some bad news on the horizon. The bad news is, we’re on the edge of a recession. Between trade wars and the pandemic shutting down a lot of business and making people jobless/homeless, we’re facing an uncertain 2021. Until a COVID19 vaccine reaches all quarters, we’re still living in fear for our families and livelihoods every time we step outside our own door. No one should spend their holidays worrying about the year ahead, to buy holiday gifts with a sense of dread and worry about how it will all be paid for in the coming year. We should be happy, plucky, cocky, and strong now. It isn’t fair to get through a year as hard as 2020 and then to have the wind taken out of our sails.  So, here’s a proposition: let’s not do that. Let’s go into 2021 as we did in ... read more

When’s the last time you said “thank you” to your car? Thanksgiving is approaching and soon, most of us will be sitting around a table to a glorious feast, talking about the many things that we’re grateful for. In most cases, we’ll talk about the essential workers, like paramedics, police officers, the fire department, nurses, doctors, delivery drivers, and of course, mechanics. We’ll talk about the family and friends to survive the COVID-19 pandemic and in some cases, we’ll sadly remember the ones who didn’t. At AutoPro, we’re grateful for our customers. We were able to help each other through what has turned out to be a very bleak year. Many shops have closed down, unable to sustain themselves through the pandemic, but thanks to our regulars and their caring, we managed to make it through. But how often did you notice in the past summer how good it was to have a working automobile? How great it felt to take off your mask the mo ... read more

Photo by Josh Hild on Unsplash Fall and winter can be particularly difficult on your vehicles, especially with the weather we get here in Minnesota! That being said, it’s important to know when to get your car ready for the coming winter months, and that time is here. Keep reading to learn how to get your vehicle prepped and primed for the coming cold weather this year by going over these five important areas!   Tires:  Regardless of whether it snows or not in your location, you should make sure your tires have proper tread, tire pressure, and aren’t damaged or unevenly worn. Use the penny test to check your tire tread depth, and inspect around your tires for cracks, or if there are chunks and gouges in the wa ... read more

Going back to school is stressful enough, but school during COVID-19 takes the cake. Many schools will likely be distance-learning instead of going back to classrooms. Depending on the location and status of your community, it’s likely that distance learning will become the norm for the foreseeable future. Whatever happens, here are some helpful tips for back to school safety in 2020! 1.       Discover your school’s COVID-19 plan. You’ve likely already heard from your children’s schools about coming back to school. Depending on each individual families’ needs, sending your children back to school physically may not be a viable option. You and your family will have to decided for yourselves which risks you’re willing to take should school reopen. In the meantime, find out how all this online school is supposed to happen, and prepare for extended online learning! 2.       Teach your kids proper hygiene and social ... read more

No matter your skill level, as a car owner, you should get comfortable making sure you can perform some simple car-care practices. Some things you may want to leave to the pros, but there is a bunch of basic vehicle maintenance that you can do easily on your own too!   Firstly, you should always get acquainted with your owner’s manual. Every car has one, and it's usually a thick little booklet that’s stored in your glovebox. If you can’t find it, don’t worry; you can always find an online version! Give it a read, and then turn to your maintenance schedule section. This will tell you what kinds of maintenance is needed and when.    Next, you’ll want to regularly check and change your car’s oil and oil filter. Think of your engine as your vehicle’s heart and its oil as its blood. It lubricates the rest of the engine, allowing your engines various parts to work together without grinding and causing damage over time. Old engine o ... read more

Taking care of your car’s fluids is one of the most important things you can do as a car owner. Over time, innovations in the automotive industry have added new types of fluids to maintain, meaning more maintenance overall. If you want to know how to keep up on your car’s fluids, make sure you keep reading to understand how to take care of your vehicle’s fluids. All cars need oil, which is perhaps one of the most common types of fluids you should check. Oil lubricates different areas of your engine to keep them running smoothly and avoid overheating. Make sure your engine is cold, and then check your oil levels. Top it off with your recommended oil type from your car manual, and that’s it! Radiator fluid is also easy to check, and it ensures that your car doesn’t overheat while out and about. Always check your radiator fluid after driving, but not while hot or cold. Don’t forget about your transmission or brake fluids! Transmission fluid allows you ... read more

While you may not know what ABS (antilock braking system) is, it’s vital to your car’s performance. Whether you drive a car, motorcycle, or truck, knowing how your ABS works and what it does for your vehicle will help you appreciate all that it does!  First introduced as an anti-skid system for aircraft in the 1950s, car manufacturers soon put it to work. By the 1970s, Ford and Chrysler had proved it could be utilized in the automotive industry, and to this day, ABS is present in all modern cars. While ABS is part of the electronic stability control system, put simply, your ABS is a safety anti-skid braking system. It was designed to help while braking and works by preventing the wheels from locking up while you brake. By doing so, your car’s ABS helps to maintain traction and contact with the road surface.    The ABS does this due to a system of sensors attached to each wheel. The sensors detect when a wheel is about to lock up and stop moving, which ... read more

When you buy a new car, you're essentially making a long-term investment in your vehicle. But what happens when your vehicle is getting on in age and starts to break down? Should you fix it, or should you call it quits and start looking for a new one? Not only is this a difficult decision to make, but it's an essential financial decision to consider as well. While there is no clear-cut answer to these questions, read on for some pros and cons to help you decide! Your old car has probably served you well over the years. If you've been taking good care of it, while there may be some breakdowns, usually these problems are easily repaired. While you may get fed up with some of these repairs over time, it makes sense that your car will need this kind of maintenance over time. Time and use can cause unavoidable wear on certain parts of your vehicle. Tire tread will wear down, belts and hoses dry out and crack, and sometimes electrical components need to be replaced. But these are ... read more

Tire care is simple and easy to do at home, but many people seem to ignore their tires when they do their own routine car maintenance. This may be caused by a lack of information on their part, or simply because they don’t realize how quick and easy it really is to do on your own! Read on to find out what you ought to know about your tires, and how to really get the most out of them. We all know that tires are made of rubber and filled with air, but let’s break down some of the different components of your tire first from the outside in. You’re probably familiar with the tire tread, which is the grooves on the outside of your tire that help with traction. It makes contact with the road surface and varies by tire type. Then there is the sidewall, which is the area on the outside of the tire from the tread to the beads within the tire. The beads are actually inside your tire, and they hold the tire to the outer edge of the wheel. Made of copper, brass, or bronze-plated ... read more