Hanover Park Auto Repair

Your car might have an alignment problem if: it drifts or pulls to one side, your steering wheel is off center, you have uneven tire wear or your car doesn't feel like it handles right. When all of a vehicle's wheels are lined up exactly with each other, your wheels are in alignment. Running into potholes, smacking a curb or other object are great ways to knock your car out of alignment. Then one or more of your wheels starts pulling in a slightly different direction and the problems begin. Driving for an extended time when you're out of alignment causes your tires to wear unevenly and excessively. This can be dangerous and expensive. You'll have to replace your tires sooner, but even worse - you may cause premature wear to your suspension system, which can be really expensive. The front wheel alignment is adjustable on all vehicles, and the back wheels are also adjustable on some cars. The adjustment can go three different ways. The first adjustment is called toe. The next ... read more

Your pickup's exhaust system is more than just a tailpipe and a muffler. In fact, it is one of the most complex systems on your pickup. Maintaining it is good Kamphaus AutoCare and Emission auto advice for Hanover Park auto owners, but it's also good health advice and good environmental advice. The exhaust system includes your emissions system. Because this system may affect your health and the health of our Elk Grove Village area environment, it is subject to strict government regulations. Satisfying these regulations demands some high-tech, computer-controlled equipment, which means that the emissions system is a lot more sophisticated than it was thirty years ago. Most car makers recommend that you have your pickup exhaust and emissions systems checked by a qualified service specialist at regular intervals. The exhaust system starts with the exhaust manifold. The ... read more

Having trouble with your fuel system? Bring your pickup into Kamphaus AutoCare and Emission for a check up. 1005 Irving Park Rd Hanover Park, IL 60133 In today's Kamphaus AutoCare and Emission auto post,we're talking about fuel system cleaning. The first thing to know is how important it is to have a clean fuel system. Hanover Park drivers need fuel to go, and the cleaner the fuel system, the more efficiently the fuel will burn. That means more power and better gas mileage. A clean fuel system saves money for Hanover Park car owners at IL gas stations. We guess you could say, it all starts and ends at the pump. One of the most important things Hanover Park auto owners can do to keep their pickup fuel system clean is to buy good quality gas. Major brands have detergents that keep gum and varnish from rapidly building up in the fuel system. So buying cheaper gas in IL can actually be more costly for Hanover Park car o ... read more

Car care is a vital part of auto safety in Hanover Park. But the most important thing we can do to improve safety on IL roads is to drive safely. Defensive driving is safe driving. And defensive driving is all about attitude. You have to decide that you will be a safe driver in IL, no matter what anyone else is doing. Hanover Park car owners can start with awareness. Always maintain awareness of your surroundings, the road conditions, other vehicles on the Hanover Park road or expressway and road hazards. Have you ever suddenly realized that you have arrived somewhere, but you don't really remember driving there? That is unsafe driving. Never assume that other Hanover Park car owners are paying attention. You be the one on alert. You be the one to take initiative to stay out of the way of other IL drivers. And don't let familiarity dull your alertness. Remind yourself to pay as close attention w ... read more

No matter how well they're made, cars are bound to have problems with their design or manufacturing. Think of all the moving parts. When the government thinks a problem is really serious, they require the auto maker to issue recall notices to Hanover Park residents and to fix the affected cars free of charge. The auto maker then tries to contact all Hanover Park motorists who own that type of car so they can have it taken care of at their Hanover Park service center. These recalls always affect safety, so Hanover Park drivers would be wise to take them seriously. It's really easy to find out if a vehicle is being recalled. For links to government sites, look in the AutoNetTV website. Other website include: carfax.com; autobytel.com; and dmv.org. All of these sites have free recall searches. Recalls are pretty serious for Hanover Park auto owners and don't happen all that often. But sometimes cars have less serious problems that Hanover Park drivers still might want to k ... read more

Diesel engines have been used extensively in Europe and Asia for many years. They haven't been as common in Elk Grove Village because of the high sulfur content in our diesel fuel. But the government is now mandating lower sulfur content and, as a result, we are going to see more Hanover Park auto owners driving diesel-fueled vehicles on the road, especially in passenger cars and SUV's. Diesels are popular in Hanover Park because they get better fuel economy than gas-powered engines. They also last longer. Modern diesel engines are quiet and powerful. And if you associate diesel engines with black smoke, then you're not up with the times. That smoke is a thing of the past. Diesels don't produce any more pollutants than gasoline engines. The pollution standards for diesel-powered vehicles are as strict in IL as for other vehicles. Also, diesel engines can run on bio-diesel fuels as well as fossil fuels ... read more

The team at Kamphaus AutoCare and Emission in Hanover Park and IL car owners are all talking MPG right now. Better gas mileage. Fewer emissions. Hanover Park car owners want to save the environment and their pocketbooks. And we all know -or should know - that preventive maintenance will help maximize fuel economy. But is there something more Hanover Park auto owners can do? After all, some of us Hanover Park folks can't cut back on our driving, and others would like to do more to economize. Weight is one major enemy of fuel economy. The more you lug around in your vehicle, the more fuel you have to burn to get from Hanover Park to Palatine. And that means buying more gas in Hanover Park and producing more emissions. Of course, your pickup's weight isn't negotiable. And you can't do much about the weight of your passengers. And this isn't an article about diet and exercise. But look around your pickup. Are yo ... read more

So what is the most distracting food to have in the car while driving around Hanover Park?Is it: A Hamburger; Coffee; A Soft Drink, or Gummy Bears? Well, you may be surprised to learn that all but the gummy bears are in the top ten most distracting foods when you are driving, but if you chose ‘coffee', then give yourself an extra two points; coffee is the number one food distraction for drivers in Hanover Park and around the country. Food distractions cause 25 percent of all car accidents; over a million and a half each year! You'll notice that all of the top ten distracting food items are messy. Messy foods are the type of food you might spill (very distracting!), then try to clean up (a safe-driving impossibility!). If you gotta eat on the run, take five-then drive. You'll thank yourself later for two reasons, one being that you can actually relax for just a moment in our fast-paced ... read more

Just as our bodies need clean air to function properly, your pickup engine needs clean air to operate efficiently. Let's go egghead for a minute. For every gallon of gas we burn driving on IL interstates, twenty pounds of carbon dioxide comes out the tailpipe. Question: how can a gallon of gas that weighs a little over six pounds produce twenty pounds of carbon dioxide?The answer is that the carbon comes from the gasoline, but the oxygen comes from the air. You see, it takes about twelve thousand gallons of air to burn a gallon of gas in your engine. Clearly, your pickup needs a lot of air to keep going in Palatine. A lot of clean air is best. You've seen the pictures of people in Japan wearing face masks. They want some kind of filter to keep unwanted pollution and germs out of their lungs. Well, your pickup also works better when its internals are clean. When your pickup air filter's dirty, it simply can't tr ... read more

Engines get hot when they run. This heat can build up and damage vital engine parts, so engines need a cooling system to keep them running. Cooling system failure is the most common mechanical failure in vehicles. This is unfortunate, because these failures are usually easy for Hanover Park motorists to prevent. The radiator is the best-known and most recognizable part of the cooling system. Hoses filled with coolant (also known as antifreeze) connect the radiator to the engine. The coolant draws heat from the engine, and then flows to the radiator. Air passing through cooling fins on the radiator cools the coolant. The coolant then cycles back into the engine to start the process over again. The most critical component of the cooling system, however, is the coolant itself. A mixture of water and coolant/antifreeze helps keep it both from freezing and from boiling away. Either can result in serious engine damage. Different engines require different types of coolant/a ... read more