EV tires are special, here is why finding EV tires for my car was not and so easy!

Ev tires and hybrid tires are different and special

Middletown NY

DO you need tires for your EV or PHEV or Hybrid? Theyu are different that regular tires and different than each other. Lets cover some quick basics on these types of tires.

Cars with electric power or electric motor assist produce strong and quick torque also commonly refered to as power to the wheels. This does cause these cars to wear tires more quickly. The fast power output causes anywhere from slight slip to easily slipping the tires. Under loads at speed this torque makes the car feel more powerful, and easily accelrates up hills. But this action makes the road surface like sand paper under your tread wearing them much faster.

Hybrid cars generally have a small battery, ICE engine,and electric motors. This adds up to more weight than a regular car. This added weight may require slightly more tire capacity than a normal ice powered car. Most general types of tires work well on these cars so long as they meet the weight capacity. Fuel saving tire designs help these system get the best fuel economy from your tires. There are many to choose from at Dolson Auto & Tire in Middletown NY.

PHEV cars generally have a slightly larger battery and electric motors and an ICE engine. These systems often run 30 to 45 miles before the ICE engine starts to keep driving ranges high and recharge the battery while driving. These cars in some cases can take a popular low rolling resistance tire or special tire that can meet the load capacity of the car. Tires designed for hybrids work best overall on hybrid and PHEV cars in most cases. Some manufacturers do require or suggest special tire features for these cars for best performance. In all cases a premuim brand tire with excellent quality works much better than an economy tire that lacks these features.

Electric Cars are the heaviest because they have bigger electric motors and big batteries, They have no ICE engine sio there is no gas on board to back up a dead battery or extend range, They have a lot of instant toque (power) and can tear the tires loose at will in most cases unless the cars software mode is set to reduce hoq quickly the torque is applied to reduce wheel spin and slowly apply power. Slow starts will help tires last longer, however the torque is there on highway speeds as well. The extra weight causes rapid tire as well. These cars are typically as much as 1000 lbs heavier than an comparably equipped ICE car so they need tires with the right load ratings to carry all that weight. Plus they need tires with other special features like noise dampening components. These noise dampeners and designs tend to cause the tread to operate at higher temperatures causing additional wear in less time. The extra weight causes additional tire wear. The heavier construction of these tires causes faster wear as well also due to heat retention. The best tire brands have the technology to fight back against these effects but EV cars will wear tires more quickly no matter what. Some very careful drivers are getting maximum miles from their EV tires. Some drivers habits wear them more quickly. Alignment has also shown to be critical for tire wear in all cases. You will want to get all 4 wheels adjusted to within specifications from your alignment tech at Dolson Tire and Auto.

Stocking the right tires for Tesla, VW, Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Subaru, Ford, Lincoln, Honda, Acura, Toyota, Lexus, and Mitsubishi among all others makes buying and getting help finding the corect tire for your needs easy at Dolson Auto & Tire in Middletown NY. They can curate a tire suggestion for you quickly based upon the facts and driving habits, ride quality, and vehicle options. Without the experience that our techs have an internet web site would meerly look up the size and not consider your needs, local road design, aggreagates used, weather, type of road ans driver skills and preferences - we can do that and help you find the tire you need with less stress and proven real world experience - in less time. Call now for help with any of your automotive needs! 845-343-6300

More Prius battery corrosion issues.

This can be prevented and life extended with timely electric car battery maintenance on most vehicles

Simoniz Dolson disinfection service middletown NY

Frame repairs

My frame is rotted? It's something people worry....

AAA Towing scams to avoid near Middletown NY

Need Towing ?

-Middletown NY

If your car breaks down near Middletown NY in Orange County there are a few options for you. One is seeking a Qualified AAA Auto Repair Center who also offers a nationwide warranty and insurance to protect your repair or tire investment where ever you live or go on on vacation.

But there is a warning to be weary of when calling AAA towing, the redirect scam. This is a convincing pitch by the tow truck driver to send your car to "their shop" or a "dealer" or other location other than the AAA Approved Auto Repair Center.

Why? Well research and evidence have shown AAA truck drivers take cash bribes to tow cars to a location that pays off. AAA Approved locations are already supposed to receive the local tow, so if there is any redirection it is going to cost you, lets face it that bribe is being paid for by you in the end. While accepting bribes is illegal....("D" felony punishable by up to seven years in state prison, Bribery in the Third Degree, New York Penal Law 200.00)....its impossible to stop.

What can you do? Firstly you must tell the tow driver like this "Thanks but I want to go to 178 Dolson Ave Middletown NY, that's where I am expected." Period. Its uncomfortable, and you feel vulnerable, that tow guy acts like he is in control, but rest assured its YOUR CAR and your choice.

Your AAA membership covers towing to your AAA Approved Auto Repair Center where you get the discounts, extended warranty, and many other benefits. Plus most are open 7 days a week, such as Dolson Auto Repair in Middletown NY and others in nearby counties. Additionally there are other benefits such as when you buy a new tire you get free tire life services at thousands of Goodyear, Michelin, Firestone, and Bridgestone dealers across the USA, auto repair insurance provided by SONSIO insurance, and peace of mind that a AAA Certified Mechanic and ASE Certified Technician is licensed and insured and well trained.

There are so many reasons to avoid the diversion tactic tow truck drivers pull, but mostly the meer fact they want to tow you someplace else is a major warning. Imagine walking into a nice coffee shop and some seedy person tries to convince you to buy coffee out in an ally! Yeah right buddy!

Go where you know AAA expected you to go, at least you know if something happens those people can help you and stand by you in an emergency. Someone will know where you are and where you were sent to.

Are State Inspections less than good enough? Its a question for ....

-Middletown, NY

The elected officials make and pass the laws, not necessarily the department who enforces them. In some cases laws change when one group asks lawmakers to consider a change in regulation to improve a problem. A recent example of a change was when law enforcement groups concerned for safety asked lawmakers to enact the no tint regulations on state inspection. Now the poor inspector can loose their job if they allow you leave with tinted windows - read the regulation for the specific rulings.

Another issue is safe trucks that can fail causing problems or even accidents, here is a example experienced tow drivers see every day on the side of highways in Orange County.

This truck experienced a ball joint failure, however a search of the text using Google comes up with nothing found. Now to know the entire text is complicated and understanding and interpreting it may require an expert, however some feel this is a potential risk that could be considered by lawmakers.

In simple terms, when you look at what happened at high speed and imagine what could or does happen to some people when these items break while driving - makes you think what if my family vehicle was overlooked for this because the regulation does not specifically instruct it to be tested. This vehicle was inspected elsewhere and the owner felt something was wrong but the inspector said it met the regulation so there was nothing he could cite.

Perhaps its time to ask legislators to think about preventing some breakdowns that cause traffic issues, require police or emergency responders, possible fire, ambulance, towing and worse of all an injury or accident to an innocent person over a small matter of the text of a regulation.

Leasing versus owning, how to save more

Outsmart 'em and save more by using this car trick....

-Middletown NY

       While people complain about not having enough money at times, you look and see major errors in their judgement, don't you? We all have that friend, or spouse, who says "oh I don't know how I am going to retire someday!" while they show off their brand new expensive accessory!

There are some simple tasks you can use to adjust or modify your finances. One is understanding money and time as it relates to one of the larger expenses or assets you have. Your money can either grow or depreciate based upon how you invest it. This is about how to save more money for the long run by realizing how much leasing a car can cost.

I have been saving for my whole life, and I would not be comfortable now if it were not for the discipline and technique we can focus on today. Remember these few hacks and you will be better off for it.

The last time I bought a new vehicle was when I was poor, young, and thought it would make a difference in finding a wife! Many years went by and when my truck was old I finally found a wife who could care less about my cool truck. The vehicle you drive will not make real friends.

That truck cost a lot, and monthly payments for 5 years totaled $32700 from 1991 to 1997. That total included $8000 in interest. In 1997 the truck was worth $12250 and had 50,000 miles. I lost $20450,  the down payment, fees, and taxes of $4189 of my investments value in 5 years. That equals $4090 per year or $340.83 per month. At least I owned and it did not lease it.

An average vehicle owner spends about $432 per year on repairs and maintenance (varies by state and vehicle type), of course some spend more, but the point is some more some less, even the largest issues cost less except a crash with major body work. Over those years I wish I could keep those car payments. I thought about it every day. Every month when I made that payment, it was painful. I thought to myself, of all the cars I fix every day none are that bad. Not as bad as $4090 per year.

I imagined my life had I not spent the payments and instead purchased a used truck with 60k, you could look at it a few ways:
1. the used truck cost $12500 and in five years is probably worth $3000 but I did not pay out the $20450 and it only lost $9500 in value for a better result of $7900
2. had I set aside the average $432 in repairs and maintenance costs for a vehicle with 60k to 110k of that type I would have $2592 in the bank for those repairs, it's possible earning a small interest.
3. I would not worry much about my vehicle and reduce stress

Depreciation is the word and it wraps up the dirty little secret. An article by Nerd Wallet sums it up but does not delve into the mathematical facts. Used cars loose less dollars of depreciation at a slower rate over time. The curve as expressed on a graph is

At some point you have to be getting really stingy or even to look into the yellow area to buy a car, however any car that runs and passes inspection has good value. If it gets you to work or the store its worth it for the fact of its purpose. Plus who cares if it gets a dent or scratch? No stress and cheaper insurance. The point here is that you are not losing much money down at these levels, and over time - 5 years of payments is way more than the car cost you. In fact you could afford to pay someone to wash it, detail it once or twice a year, repair it and have plenty of money left over.

Lets use the same chart for leasing - just humor yourself for a moment if you would be so kind. A person who leases an average car is paying $399 a month and if leased for 3 or 4 years at a time and traded back to a new lease you would have spent $48,000 in 10 years and owned nothing. Had you purchased a newish used car lets imagine 4 year old Rav4 for $15000 with low miles in great shape you would have a 14 year old rav 4 with 180,000 miles, not out of the norm for modern cars and if you cared for it well it will probably still be worth something and you would have saved $33,000. Leasing is good for wealthy people who can write it off or who make a very high hourly rate such as a licensed professional where time is the problem more so than money. If you entertain clients in your car then image is truly part of your job and you need a very clean and pretty car. 

I started this as an exercise to convince myself that it might be ok now for me to buy a new car, to analyze the worth and main effects and interactions. While we don't have time for all that you might consider in this short article I suggest that a conclusion is generally buying used or keeping your car is a better method to retain cash and grow your wealth. This is further indicated by the national vehicle age that has risen to 12 years due to the higher quality of modern vehicles, they simply last longer.

Use your scenarios to analyze your specific situation and chart out time in your analysis to determine what is worth it for you. One suggestion is to have a car repair account that you make a scheduled transfer to monthly and let it build up so that when repairs are needed its no stress. On a future post I want to consider easier ways to pay for the inevitable things that age and environment cause with all machines. Thanks for reading and please share or repost to help me if I have helped you in some way.

If you like this please check out our facebook page or https://www.DolsonTire.com and the link to our other blog articles

Everest Motor Oil beats Valvoline Mobil1 Castrol at Dolson Auto

Look at this on eBay

http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?icep_ff3=2&pub=5575378759&campid=5338273189&customid=&icep_item=333024554872&ipn=psmain&icep_vectorid=229466&kwid=902099&mtid=824&kw=lg&toolid=11111

Audi AllRoad Air Suspension Training

In order to begin diagnosing advanced systems you will need the information to focus on the testing required for a given problem. Here is an example of the work we do on Audi VW cars with a combination of testing, meters, and VAG-COM factory level access coding and programming software.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mHuFdeKoVVISRHA4w79y0O7TnwTt4mub/view?usp=sharing

Be sure to verify the basics first, it takes time, removal of interior panels alone can take 35 to 60 minutes each way, plus tooling and developing tests. If you need Audi VW problems diagnosed please see us at our site.

ps... if the dealer gave you a large estimate and you want to try to save some income bring us the printed copy and we will try to beat it or discuss alternate methods and parts. Thank you.

Diesel charging system diagnostics

Credit to John Anello for the excellent example of a difficult and time consuming diagnosis 

I had a shop call me for advice on a 2002 Dodge Ram Truck with a 5.9L diesel engine that had a charging system issue (Figure 1). I probably field at least 50-70 calls a day and there are many times that I will provide my shops with free tech advice over the phone. This issue seemed simple to me because Chrysler, for many years, has used a strategy to control their alternators externally. In the early days, they mounted voltage regulators on the firewall but once onboard computers came into play the regulator worked its way into the circuit board of the Engine Control Module. The alternator field circuit was usually fed an ignition feed and controlled by a ground feed on the opposing side of the field circuit.

The owner of the vehicle was a do-it-yourselfer and had changed the alternator with an aftermarket one but it did not resolve his problem. The truck was then shipped to the shop where they checked all the wiring and decided to opt for an OEM alternator to see if that would resolve the charging system issue (Figure 2). When this didn't work, the shop gave me the call.

Figure 2

Before I make the drive
I ran through all the steps with the shop technician and educated him on how the system should work and he mentioned that there was no power feed coming out of the PCM to feed the one side of the alternator field circuit. I explained to him that it was possible that the PCM was bad or that the PCM was sensing a partial short to ground in the feed line and was possibly turning off an internal driver to protect itself.
The next day the shop tech called me back to explain that he temporarily ran dedicated wires for both the power feed and triggering lines of the field control circuits between the alternator and PCM. The alternator still would not charge but if he supplied the 12 volts into the power feed circuit the alternator was charging fine so he decided that he was going to order up a rebuilt PCM unit from the dealer. I told him that once he purchased the PCM and installed it, to call me so that I could swing by and program it for him.
Later in the week I received the call that all was ready to go so I ventured out to his shop at the end of my day to program the PCM. Once I arrived there I set up my old Chrysler DRB III scan tool as a pass thru device with an interface cable to my laptop. I configured the PCM with the vehicle VIN number and then downloaded the necessary software into the PCM. The truck started up but guess what? We were back to square one. We both sat there scratching our heads and then I offered him to let me perform a full diagnostic on the vehicle in order to retrace ALL the steps that had been taken and he agreed.
Diving in a little deeper
I hooked up my scan tool and pulled codes from the PCM. One code was P1765 that indicated a loss of ignition feed to the transmission relay and the other code was a P0622 indicating that the generator field was not switching properly (Figure 3). These codes both had a common power feed issue because the PCM was still not sending the 12-volt output required to satisfy their circuits. There had to be a reason why the PCM was not doing its job and I decided to look at some data PIDs hoping to find a piece of the puzzle that could guide me in the right direction.

Figure 3

Figure 4

When I was viewing the data I saw something that raised my eyebrows. There was no RPM signal getting to the PCM and the desired charging voltage was 0 volts (Figure 4). The PCM was not performing its task of charging the alternator because as far as it was concerned the vehicle was not running. So then how was this vehicle running without an RPM signal? Why didn’t the PCM set a code for loss of RPM signal input? I now have to pull some diagrams to do some onsite strategy research because at this point I had no answers.
This vehicle was a diesel and was a horse of a different color because it used a separate Engine Control Module that was specifically used to run the Diesel engine. The crank sensor fed a direct RPM signal to the ECM and there was a cam sensor signal that was also supplied to the ECM coming from the engine driven injection pump. The ECM in turn would output an RPM signal to the PCM so that it could properly control the transmission and the alternator. So I now had to run some tests on the ECM to determine what was going on.

Figure 5

Figure 6

I scanned the ECM and found a code P1693 which indicated a fault in the PCM so I kind of ignored this code because the ECM was playing the “Blame Game” (Figure 5), I next looked at some ECM PIDs and found that it was receiving the RPM signal from the crank sensor and an RPM signal from the cam sensor (Figure 6). The ECM inputs did not seem to be an issue so now I was leaning towards an output signal issue with the circuit going back to the PCM but at this point I needed access to the ECM so I could put my scope on the signal lines.

Figure 7

I had the shop pull the fuel filter housing on the left side of the engine block to gain access to the ECM that was mounted to the side of the block (Figure 7). I placed my scope lead on the RPM output signal to the PCM on channel 1 and placed my other scope lead on the crank sensor RPM Input signal to the ECM on channel 2. I started the vehicle and you could see that the crank sensor RPM signal to the ECM was fine with good triggering transitions from 0-5 volts but the RPM output signal to the PCM was flat lined at 5 volts (Figure 8). The PCM signal line was not shorted because it was elevated at about 5 volts.
I next decided to think out of the box by opening the RPM signal line at the PCM and sending the RPM signal from the Crank sensor into the PCM to simulate that the engine was running to test PCM system strategy. My results were as expected because the alternator started to charge immediately. I went back to view the PCM data and you could now see that the desired voltage was 13.8 Volts and the charging voltage was also 13.8 volts. It would have been nice to just leave it at that just to get the truck out the shop door but the issue now was the PCM was seeing the vehicle running at 2528 RPMs when actually the truck was idling at 700 RPMs (Figure 9).

Figure 8

Figure 9

In the end
The ECM on this truck most likely took the crank sensor signal input and internally reduced the frequency of the signal delivered to the PCM for some type of strategy reason. There was an internal circuit board failure and the only choice was to have the ECM sent out for repair because there was not one available from the dealer or aftermarket due to the age of the vehicle. I just feel bad for the owner of the vehicle because this was a work truck and the shop owner never knew what a nightmare it would turn out to be and how long he would have it in his possession.
Okay so about another week goes by and the rebuilt ECM finally showed up and the shop installed the ECM which was a "plug and play" unit. The vehicle started up and the good news is that everything worked like a charm. I had to go back to just get a scope pattern out of this diesel monster and to validate the repairs before the shop buttoned it all up. I quickly hooked my scope up again to view the patterns and you could now see the input and output RPM signals were working as designed with different frequencies (Figure 10).

Figure 10

This vehicle really proves that a trouble code does not always lead you down the right path. It is vitally important to know how to read data PIDs. The code in the PCM only validated that the alternator field circuits had a power feed or switching ground issue that was pointing you to a wiring fault or a possible bad PCM with an internal alternator field driver failure. There was no cam signal reference to the PCM like there would be in a gas engine so there was no way for the PCM to fail the crank sensor for a lack of input. The strategy of this system would be for the PCM to provide a voltage output and field circuit toggling once a specific RPM threshold was met but this never took place. In the end it took some out of the box thinking to unmask the true culprit. My only hopes are that this story will enhance what you know or don’t know about Chrysler diesel controllers working in tandem.