Gig Harbor Auto Repair

There's a reason we use the word "diagnose" when we talk about fixing cars in Gig Harbor. Figuring out what's wrong with your car, truck, SUV has a lot of similarities to figuring out what's wrong with someone who is ill. Vehicles are a mass of complex systems that can produce a variety of symptoms when something goes wrong. As with human diagnoses, a specific symptom may be indicative of a number of problems, and figuring out the specific cause takes training and experience. Sometimes the diagnosis of your car, truck, SUV's trouble comes down to a matter of trial-and-error. This can be frustrating for Gig Harbor motorists because time and money are on the line. You may feel you should only be paying for repair work. Of course, you only want to pay for the right repair - and a proper diagnosis is part of getting it right. Like at the Gig Harbor doctor's office - some of what you pay for is the doctor ... read more

A fuel injector is a valve that delivers fuel to a vehicle's engine. It has to deliver the precise amount of fuel, to precisely the right place, precisely when the engine needs it. The fuel also has to be mixed with air before it can burn in the engine. Fuel injectors are engineered to spray fuel in a specific pattern into the engine. (The pattern varies by engine type and design.) In order to achieve these spray patterns, the fuel must be pressurized. The pressure in a fuel injection system varies depending on its type. Many gasoline engines use port injection systems, which operate with a pressure of 60 pounds per square inch. Newer direct injection systems operate at 10 to 30 times that pressure. Some diesel passenger vehicles have fuel injectors that operate at 30,000 pounds or more per square inch. Vehicles have one fuel injector for each cylinder in the engine. Your vehicle's control computer constantly monitors the engine and various sensors in the ve ... read more

How do Gig Harbor car owners know if an odometer is telling the truth? Well, back in '86, Congress passed the Truth-in-Mileage Act to protect Washington consumers against mileage fraud. It says a Washington seller must certify the mileage reported is the Actual Mileage. To have your odometer checked in Gig Harbor Washington, stop by Mackert Automotive: If it isn't, the seller must say why; like maybe the odometer is past its mechanical limits. Some older odometers only go to 99,999 miles and then start over at 0. Or, the odometer has been tampered with, broken or replaced. If the seller tells you the mileage isn't accurate, there's not much chance of putting a good number to it; And there's the unscrupulous seller who claims the reading is true, but it's not so. What can Gig Harbor drivers do? First, you can go to www.CarFax.com, where for a small fee, they'll give you a comprehensive vehicle histo ... read more