Service Department

Services Offered

 We are able to provide a wide variety of automotive related services for both on car and off car concerns. We are the original Air Conditioning  and Cooling System experts in San Carlos. Most times a vehicle can be serviced or repaired in one day. The do it yourselfer will find us to be invaluable, as we can provide professional quality restoration services which are the missing elements in a "Hot Rod" project. 

On Car Services

Cooling System

 Underperformed cooling system maintenance is the number one cause for cooling system failures. The protection of inhibitor charged anti-freeze is lost to a thick acidic slurry which is circulated under pressure and hot temperatures. It's just a matter of time before metals and plastics and rubber seals breakdown and begin to fail. While advances in coolant chemistry have allowed longer service intervals, this does not always prove to be a good thing. Overheating, leaking, poor heater performance, rust and electrolysis are all signs of underperformed maintenance.

Air Conditioning

The biggest complaint from customers about Air Conditioning stems from a decrease in cooling. Refrigerant leakage is usually the cause of this, and each vehicle must be carefully evaluated to find the root cause. In some cases intermittent A/C  operation is due to electrical or mechanical issues. Each vehicle is a little different and is given a check up to insure that proper operation is the end result.

Often overlooked and underappreciated, brakes quietly offer the greatest safety measure there is. Worn brakes get hotter, and increase the stopping distance required for a safe stop. Uneven wear can cause a car to pull when the brakes are applied. Warped brake rotors can cause stability issues during high speed usage (freeway). New brakes will offer a measure of safety that you can rely on.

Why wait for a breakdown? When scheduled maintenance is performed properly, wearing parts are replace before they fail. Soft parts like belts and hoses are replaced, rotating parts are lubricated and serviced, and friction parts checked and replaced. This will result in a vehicle that has very little down time and will reward the vehicle owner with a higher than normal reliability benefit.

Restoration Services

Gas Tanks

Old gas tanks from project cars often need attention. Years of inactivity usually leaves a thick layer of rust and condensed gasoline that forms a sticky smelly corrosive sludge. Often, once the sludge is removed, pinholes in the skin of the tank can appear. We are able to repair these holes, and then add a lining to the inside to ensure that the tank will survive many more years. Tanks are evaluated on a case by case basis, and not every tank is salvageable. When tanks are in extremely poor condition, a replacement tank should be sought, whether it be new or used.

Not every tank that needs our attention is an old one. Sometimes gas tanks are the victims of "Street Drama" and may have suffered a precise puncture at the hands of someone who decided he didn't want to pay the high price for gas. Other times tanks come to us and are contaminated with sugar. Whatever the case, we can usually assist you with the right procedures and services to get you back on the road again in short order.

Radiators don't always age gracefully....  Copper is a wonderful heat conductor, yet loves to corrode and rot in a salt environment. Sometimes just the salt in the air is enough to weaken a radiator over time. Once a radiator gets soft and weak, it really needs to be Recored. Recoring involves a complete disassembly of the radiator and reassembly with a new core. While this usually takes 2-3 days and can be costly, it is also permanent and will restore cooling system efficiency to 100%.

If a radiator is strong enough to survive disassembly, it may be a good candidate for a Rod Out. This involves pushing an appropriate sized rod down through each of the many tubes that make up a radiator core. If the radiator is weak, it will not survive such a intrusive cleaning and will leak.

Patching a leaking radiator is always relatively inexpensive, and judging by the number of calls we get, quite popular among both the professional shops and do it yourself crowd as well. Often a radiator just needs a little attention to get it back on the road.

Quite often the plastic aluminum construction of newer radiators limits the amount of service that can be performed economically.  However routine cleaning and repairing puncture/abrasion damages is still performed regularly.