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  "PageContent": "<h3>Roberts Automotive</h3>January 12th, 2012 If you own a vehicle with an electronic parking brake, make sure you actuate it from time to time. Otherwise, you may be in for an expensive surprise when it comes time to replace the rear brake pads. A $200 job could easily turn into greater than $1000 due to the parking brake mechanism becoming seized. Actually, the parking brake should be used every time the car is parked. Frozen parking brakes are due to disuse and just about nothing else. The transmission park position should never be trusted to hold the vehicle. Personally, I know of two instances of failure of the park position in the transmission to hold the vehicle. One resulted in a fatality and another in an injury. The parking brake is there for a reason. Use it and be safe. Posted in Audi, BMW, Driving Tips, Money Saving Tips, Safety, Volkswagen |   No Comments »November 19th, 2011 Rotary Club of Lancaster South and Isaac’s in Greenfield are teaming up for a “Community Night Fundraiser” on Thursday, December 15, 2011Isaac’s on Greenfield Roadwill host a fundraiser to benefit Rotary Club of Lancaster South. Bring your family and friends to enjoy great food and great company. Twenty five percent (25%) of the total cost of your meal will go to Rotary Club of Lancaster South for our community projectsWe Hope to See You There!Rotary Club of Lancaster South Community Projects Include:Please click here to print the coupon and give it to your server so that Rotary Club of Lancaster South is credited with the funds to help support these worthy community projects. Thank you. Posted in Uncategorized |   No Comments »October 17th, 2011 AAA Central Penn has just announced the winner of its first annual Top Shop Award, a recognition program for shops striving to be the best and willing to prove their commitment to excellence. The Central Penn Region consists of an area stretching from Lancaster to Carlisle. In a field of 47 AAA approved auto repair facilities, including car dealerships, <h3>Roberts Automotive</h3> finished fourth with a score of 98.25%. The first 8 finishers were all independent repair shops. Noteworthy, was the fact that only seven tenths of a percentage point separated first from fourth. In order to display its trusted sign, AAA approved auto repair facilities must pass stringent requirements that include ASE (Automotive Service Excellence) mechanic certifications, background checks, staff professionalism, and facility appearance. <h3>Roberts Automotive</h3> has been serving Lancaster and its surroundings for over 35 years with high quality repairs on VW and Audi vehicles, and have recently expanded their lines to include BMW and Mercedes vehicles. <h3>Roberts Automotive</h3> offers a variety of services like state inspections, oil changes, timing belts, check engine lights and scheduled maintenance. There is more information available on the website at www.roberts-automotive.com or call 717-285-3738. Posted in Money Saving Tips, Uncategorized |   No Comments »August 29th, 2011 The price of finished oil products continues to climb. Our business and others like us are staring down the barrel of our fourth price increase this year of 8%, 8%, 10%, and now 6%. Those increases are just for the base stock. The additive package that goes into that quart of oil that goes into your car has increased in price 3 times so far in 2011 with another round on the way. Even though we are seeing oil getting cheaper on the commodities market, that situation is not passing through to the end users, you and me, and it won’t anytime soon. We are on our way to continuous price increases in motor oil.Controlling vehicle operating costs is on everyone’s mind, and one of the best ways to do that is to use oil that meets the specifications of the manufacturer of your car, and use the oil change intervals that are recommended. More is not better. Changing oil more frequently than recommended is a waste of money and resources. It increases the volume of waste entering the environment with no positive effect on vehicle performance, longevity or costs. Recommended service intervals include a time and mileage factor, whichever is first, and it is important not to exceed those criteria. These intervals only work with oil that is recommended by the manufacturer. The specifications, which are in your owner’s manual, must also be printed on the oil bottle. If they are not printed on the oil bottle, that oil is not approved for use in your vehicle no matter what the manufacturer of that oil claims. Also, do not use additives. Oil companies pay thousands of dollars to car manufacturers to have their oil approved for just one application and the car maker engages in exhaustive testing to ensure that their engines meet strict emissions and warranty requirements while maximizing longevity. Additives can cause harm to catalytic converters, oxygen sensors, particulate filters, piston rings and camshafts. The same goes for a low quality oil or the wrong oil. It is almost without exception that when we replace a catalytic converter on a VW product, we discover the owner had been using the wrong oil.Again, more is not better. Frequent changes with a cheap oil will not protect the aforementioned components. In fact using this strategy will do more harm than leaving a high quality oil in too long. Be an informed consumer and save money in the process. Make sure your oil change establishment is using the correct oil in your car. Ask to see the label to make sure, or go online and check the oil company’s website for a list of approvals for that oil. You’ll be rewarded with many thousands of miles of trouble free operation. Posted in Audi, Maintenance, Money Saving Tips, Volkswagen |   No Comments »August 14th, 2011 This is not going to be a treatise on the book written by Charles MacKay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds about the tulip bulb mania in Holland in the 1600’s, but it does have a parallel in auto repair in that crowd behavior is similar no matter what the topic. What I am referring to is maintenance.In order for any machine to work well and be reliable, it needs regular maintenance. This is why companies are such sticklers about maintaining their equipment and machinery. A machine that breaks down and stops production costs them big money.  However, the average motorist pays little attention to this cost saving strategy employed by businesses. Many defer maintenance because they “don’t have the money right now”. This is delusional thinking. Money is saved over the long term by putting the car on a regular maintenance plan and taking care of needed repairs before they lead to bigger problems. Believe it or not this concept is kind of abstract.A car is an integral part of almost everyone’s life because we don’t have very good public transportation in the U.S. Without a car we don’t get to work, or the grocery store, or engage in our favorite forms of entertainment. Yet, for some perverse reason, we believe this complex machine will run forever with no maintenance. Then the day of reckoning arrives and now the car is a “piece of junk and I am getting rid of it” because it needs a couple of thousand dollars in repairs and deferred maintenance. Deferring maintenance and repairs almost always leads to higher cost of operation over the long term. The long term doesn’t just involve the car, but also a number of other factors. What is the cost of being late for work, or worse yet not getting to work, angering your boss and co-workers? What is the cost of being late for your kid’s soccer event or school play or missing them altogether? What is the cost of having the car break down before or on that vacation you have been looking forward to for months?Our attitude toward maintenance is driven by perceived risk. Some people will not fly in an airplane, which is statistically much safer than driving, but they perceive that the risk is greater in an airplane when reality states otherwise. Humans are not driven by logic. Logic says to maintain the machine, but our hearts want that new iPad. So we rationalize that the machine will just keep running. We perceive its possibility of failure as low. Just as illogically, we decide we aren’t going to put any more money in this “piece of junk”, but will go out and buy another used car, on which the previous owner deferred maintenance. After all, who would meticulously maintain a car and then sell it? That’s lunacy. So we buy somebody else’s problem child, have no idea how the car was used, and spend thousands of dollars fixing it. Is this rational behavior? After we get caught in this trap, we rationalize that we were tired of the old bucket of bolts anyway. As crazy as it sounds, I’ve observed this behavior over and over in my 40 years in the auto repair business. I’ve recommended to folks that they get rid of a car because I know the thing is just going to be a money pit. Some cars are like that. Yet, they will hang on even when I show them the numbers going forward. On the flip side, I have seen really good cars with deferred maintenance issues, but the owner would rather sell it and get something else in the belief that it will be cheaper, only to find himself caught in the same maintenance and repair issues as the old car. Sometimes worse.Bottom line. Get an honest opinion about the vehicle you now have and make an objective evaluation about the maintenance plan or lack thereof that you have been doing. If your car is going to require a fair amount of money to make it reliable and increase its longevity, compare that to the purchase price of another car plus the unknowns of deferred maintenance or structural issues. If your car is paid off, the cost of maintenance and repairs is like buying a used car, but at a steep discount. You don’t have the problem of unknowns with your own car. Happy Motoring! Posted in Maintenance, Money Saving Tips, Safety, Uncategorized |   No Comments »July 20th, 2011 There is a an easy way to save money on auto repair and here it is – pick a shop you trust and do all of your business there. Why not shop around? There are a number of reasons why shopping around costs more money in the long run. For one thing your time has value. Not only does it take time to shop around, but the time spent trying to resolve a problem with a repair can be enormous and cause a lot of anger. Think about that. The last shop to touch the vehicle is suspect in anything that goes wrong with it. Say you had a water pump replaced at shop A, an oil change done at shop B, and a check engine light repaired at shop C, all because you determined who was cheapest for those repairs. And then a coolant leak developed a couple of days after the last repair. Guess who is the suspect? Shop C was the last guy to touch the vehicle. Now he has to prove that he didn’t cause the problem, so he sends you back to where the water pump was replaced at shop A. Their contention is that shop B nicked a hose while changing the oil.  Nobody wants to take ownership of the problem and meanwhile your pot is starting to boil. This problem may never get resolved. If you do all of your repairs at one shop, the likelihood that they will bend over backwards to keep you as a customer is high. I have been in this business for 40 years and have repaired issues for good customers that were either just over the warranty period or even for things I had nothing to do with. Many good shops out there do the same for their customers.  I am not advocating having blind faith in a shop, but the shop should be your trusted advisor concerning car repairs. By all means, ask questions because it is your right to know, but if you are feeling like your business is being taken for granted, find another shop. The best way to do that is to get a referral from someone who is happy with the shop they are using. I have one plumber, one electrician, one landscaper, and one machine shop, etc.  I’ll do business with those folks until they give me a reason not to. Sometimes the job is more than they can handle and that is fine, but then I ask for a referral. If they are good people, I know they will refer me to good people. If they refer me to a knucklehead, their own reputation is on the line. So, if you want to save money on car repairs, pick a shop, any shop, one you can trust and who has your best interest at heart. Happy Motoring! Posted in Driving Tips, Maintenance, Money Saving Tips, Uncategorized |   No Comments »May 24th, 2011 A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to participate in the AASP-PA meetings in Grantville PA. It was an interesting and informative experience and gave me some insight into the concept of momentum. I came to the conclusion that there exists in the universe a law which states “A bad idea, once moving, cannot be stopped”, especially where government is involved. One of the presenters informed us of the coming revolution that is the electric car, comparing it to cell phones, computers and the early automobile. We were shown charging stations that would allow mainstream use of these vehicles by allowing people to cover greater distances without running out of power. We were told that we were getting a glimpse of the future and once people figured this out, electrics would sell like hot cakes. Well, I have a hard time believing that as the free market has not embraced this mode of transportation, and therefore in my opinion, it has no chance of going mainstream. It has no chance of getting off the ground without government help. Think about the complex government involvement in all markets by way of subsidies, tax breaks, cronyism, favoritism, etc., and the huge costs involved. When the free market satisfies demand for a product or service, that product or service is sustainable until it is no longer applicable or wanted. When government meddles in a market by providing incentives, that market is only sustainable as long as those incentives exist. Despite the fact that Government Motors and Chrysler came back from the dead at the expense of stockholders and Ford Motor, the cost to taxpayers was huge. Saving huge companies such as GM was not about saving jobs, but about saving the government, financiers, and industrialists. GM didn’t pay back part of its debt to the government with profits from operations, but with more debt from banks backed by the government. If the electric car were such a great idea, the free market would fill that need or want at a much lower cost than any government program could produce. A thinking person would say to himself “how can the electric grid handle a huge increase in electric vehicles when PPL is encouraging people to put solar panels on their houses just so the company can get the energy credits?” Hello. They don’t have the capacity. Remember the brownouts? How is that infrastructure buildout going to take place when the government is squashing the use of coal and hydro to produce energy? In 2009 Coal provided 44% of the electricity produced in the United States and 41% worldwide. What is going to replace that? It is pretty hard to beat the stuff in energy per pound. The next biggest is nuclear at about 20%. After the Japanese debacle, don’t expect any buildout in nuclear plants even though the newest technology is safer than coal. The simplest thing the government could do with no increase in bureaucracy is to raise the gasoline tax which increases the price of gasoline to the point that markets demand more fuel efficient or alternative energy transportation. And then get out of the way of free enterprise. Now I can hear the screaming going on about the increased costs to the middle class associated with that idea, but dismantle the bureaucracy now in place and strip out all of the hidden costs in regulations, mandates, etc., forced on the public presently and it would be cheaper to get from point A to point B. People don’t look at the hidden tax of inflation caused by government spending and mandates because they don’t need to overtly fork over the cash or stuff a credit card into the pump. Well, as I said before, if an idea gets any momentum, it will be realized. However, the free market always wins eventually. It may take years and I don’t know what it will look like, but like other businesses, we will adapt to it. Instead of fixing mechanical things we will be fixing electrical things. The good news is that cars are getting more reliable. The bad news is that when something breaks, it costs a lot more to fix it. Properly maintaining any mechanical or electrical device almost always lowers costs over its service life. There’s no getting around that. The economy has been tough on a lot of folks and still looks scary going forward, but at the end of the day, the service industry will still be helping the public get from point A to point B safely and reliably. Posted in Industry News, Uncategorized |   1 Comment »May 17th, 2011 Consumer Reports cites research published by the American Psychological Association, on the online journal Neuropsychology that finds as we get older our reaction times slow down. No surprise there. Making people aware of that fact is a good thing, but younger drivers need to be aware of this situation too. It is important for everyone to take the responsibility to develop good driving habits and to practice defensive driving. This means being aware of what is going on around us at all times, a strategy called situational awareness. Seems kind of obvious, but there are all kinds of distractions out there competing for our attention. Cell phones, GPS, radios, loud passengers, an unhappy infant to name a few can create dangerous situations. Situational awareness extends to anticipating what other drivers may do. No one can predict the future, but the behavior of other drivers can give us a clue to what they may do next. My father in law used to ask me what it meant when somebody extended their left arm out the window. I made the mistake of saying they were going to make a left turn. He would say “no, it just means they have their left arm out the window”. Of course, he was right. I got to thinking about that and realized that we tend to make assumptions that get us into trouble. Even a turn signal flashing only means that a turn signal is flashing. It doesn’t mean the driver is going to turn. If someone applies the right turn signal coming to an intersection, we can’t be sure he will turn right or even turn at all . What happens if we try to pass him on the left and he decides that he is going to make a left? Bam! A stop light doesn’t mean another driver will stop. The problem is that we get used to and expect drivers to behave a certain way. We become complacent and complacency breeds contempt, meaning we keep assigning a lower level of risk to a situation until it one day bites us. Next time you are rounding a blind corner on a road you drive everyday, ask yourself whether you could really execute an avoidance maneuver if you had to. Remember, it takes time to recognize a dangerous situation, assign a level of risk to it, and to react. Meanwhile the car is being propelled at the same speed at which you entered the turn. At just 30 mph you are moving along at 44 feet per second. if it takes 1 second to assess the situation and move your foot to the brake, you have traveled 44 feet. That is before the car even begins to slow. Stopping distances are longer in turns because the tires need to handle the change in direction as well as to scrub off speed. There is only so much traction available and they can’t do both to maximum effect. The other variables are tread depth and the age of the tires. Tire Rack ran some tests on stopping distances versus tire tread depth and the results are rather startling. Getting back to older drivers, we must make the assumption that their ability to recognize a situation is going to take more time. Even if they can get their foot to the brake as quickly as they did 20 years before, the stopping distance is still going to increase dramatically. How can we handle this? Be aware of who is in the driver seat and how they are behaving behind the wheel. Don’t make assumptions about anything. I don’t know who coined this poem, but it is appropriate for almost any situation whether pedestrian, bicyclist, motorcyclist, or car driver:Here lies the body of William JayWho died maintaining his right of wayHe was right, dead right, as he sped alongBut he’s just as dead as if he were wrong,Wishing you safe and enjoyable motoring Posted in Driving Tips, Safety, Tires, Uncategorized |   No Comments »April 12th, 2011 One way to tell that spring is in the air is by the number of motorcyclists you are seeing. For the great majority of them, the warm weather and price of gas creates an urgency to dust off the old steed that has been sitting in the garage for the past five months. The first couple of months of riding are the most dangerous as riders acclimate to the bikes and try to regain old skills that have deteriorated over the long winter break. Unfortunately, casual riders too often apply car driving techniques to motorcycling. This is akin to believing that just because you know English you can also communicate in Japanese. The steering action of a  motorcycle has absolutely no relationship to the steering action of a car. This is one of the things that get people into trouble. Taking evasive action on a motorcycle actually requires, uh, practice. Taking a skills course, or reading a book and practicing in an empty parking lot will contribute to survivability and riding enjoyment. Things we take for granted as car drivers like tar strips, railroad tracks, loose gravel, and painted lines are hazardous to a motorcyclist. Knowing that the road is extremely slippery after it first starts to rain is something a motorcyclist needs to keep in his toolbox, but is of not much consequence to car drivers. The road has the same traction coefficient for both, but car drivers are less likely to test the limits just by virtue of the fact that they don’t need to balance the car, or balance the braking.The casual motorcyclist takes for granted that car drivers will see him or her and doesn’t account for a phenomenon called inattention blindness, whereby they become invisible to the operator of the car. Many crashes, often fatal, occur when a car turns into the path of a motorcyclist. Whether the motorcyclist is distracted and suffering from inattention blindness himself, or whether he applies the habits he learned as a car driver to the motorcycle, the results are the same, injury or death to the motorcyclist and seldom any injury to the car driver.Motorcycling requires a different mindset than that of driving a car. Distractions, while unacceptable to either endeavor, are especially hazardous to the motorcyclist. A bad day at work or an argument with a co worker or spouse sets the stage for a dangerous drive home because the operator of the car or bike is not living in the present moment. Ever drive home and wonder how you got there? It happens to all of us, but the motorcyclist must change gears before jumping on the bike or the end game could be fatal. Motorcycling is as much or more mental than physical. When jumping on a bike, forget the fact that there are laws governing the right of way on the street. If a car driver runs a traffic light, I am still dead if I don’t have the predictive skills to handle that situation. If a car driver loses me in his side view mirror, I am still coming out on the short end of the stick if he moves into my lane. Doing many of the quality checks in my business, which involves road testing the car after repair, I am shocked at the number of drivers who operate their vehicles with incorrectly adjusted side view mirrors. This habit increases the dead zone, the area not covered by the mirrors, to the point where the driver has no hope of “seeing” the motorcyclist or many smaller cars for that matter. A mirror could be adjusted any old way and still be able to view a tractor trailer. I have never figured out why mirror adjustment is not taught in driver ed classes. Being able to predict before passing that a car driver is going to move into his space or make a left turn in front of him can save the motorcyclist a lot of pain and suffering. Predictive skills are critical to survival and can be taught, but often times come from the experience of surviving a hazardous situation. It is better and safer to learn how a skilled motorcyclist has handled situations, which is why constant training is so important.Remember that each of us is responsible for the safety of ourselves and others when operating motor vehicles, be they motorcycles, trucks, or cars. Whether you are operating on 2 or 4 wheels eliminate distractions and consider taking a skills course to improve safety for you and your family. For motorcyclists check out the Motorcycle Safety Foundation courses, free to Pennsylvanians,  while car drivers can find training at companies such as Bertil Roos, which has on road training courses available. It is the best money you will ever spend. Improving control skills is one of the most important steps one can take for safe and enjoyable driving. Posted in Safety, Uncategorized |   No Comments »March 23rd, 2011 As the government continues to meddle in the free market, unintended consequences pop up all over the place. Now we have the EPA, after much lobbying from big agriculture, approving the use of E15, which is a blend of 15% ethanol to gas by volume. So what is the problem? Well, one of the problems is that as we take corn out of production to make fuel, we make the products that depend on corn more expensive and don’t make a dent in our energy dependence. Food costs more because of all of the products derived from corn. Think cereal, cooking oil, margarine, baked goods, etc.  Meat costs more because it costs more to feed cattle, chickens, and hogs. Driving costs more because your car doesn’t have the fuel economy it had on straight gasoline. The other problem is the effects ethanol has on power equipment from snow mobiles to lawn mowers to older vehicles and motorcycles. Having raced cars on methanol, I know how injurious the stuff is to plastic and alloy, meaning aluminum, parts. Ethanol is derived primarily from corn and methanol is derived from wood, but their properties are very similar. Ethanol reduces fuel economy because it doesn’t have the heat value of gasoline. Our race cars had to flow 2.5 times as much methanol as gasoline to create maximum power. The reason we used it is that in those concentrations it created 10% more power than gasoline and it ran cooler. We have an industry that is being subsidized by government, and one that couldn’t stand on its own, being forced down our throats by an organization whose regulators were not elected and seems to be accountable to no one. What we are doing is cost shifting, transferring wealth if you will.  Anyone who owns a vehicle or power equipment not designed to handle higher concentrations of ethanol is going to be a big loser. The free market may come up with solutions to the problem of operating older equipment on this stuff, but at the expense of reliability and higher cost of ownership. Let’s suppose the free market doesn’t come up with a solution. I believe the unstated objective of the powers that be is to limit our choices to owning anything “green”. This is not the road to energy independence. If we converted all of the corn produced in the U.S. on an annual basis to ethanol production, we still would need to import oil. Policy makers are not interested in you getting the most bang for your buck by driving your car until the wheels fall off. The economy only expands because of debt creation and that means they want you to buy stuff, which puts you in debt. It is time for our elected officials to stand up and take responsibility for decisions affecting our pocket books via the EPA and other regulatory bodies. I’ll end this with a thought provoking statement; there are more regulators in the U.S. than there are businesses. Food for thought. Posted in Audi, Industry News, Maintenance, Money Saving Tips, Volkswagen |   1 Comment »",
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