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Noisy disc brakes – ASE practice questions (VIDEO)

How to test for blown fuses in a car or truck | Fast and easy methodDescription All of the following could cause noisy disc brake operation EXCEPT: A) Glazed pads B) Grease contamination on the pads C) Broken anti-rattle clipsD) Foreign matter embedded into the pad...

Fuel pump designs are changing. Do you know what kind of fuel pump you’re troubleshooting?

Whether you used a fuel pressure gauge or relied on the Fuel Rail Pressure PID on your scan tool, a reading of zero when testing fuel pressure is a bad thing. What are your next steps? Do you jump the relay to see if the pressure builds? Do you use an amp probe and a...

Mechanic trivia: Which vehicle has a longer passenger side wiper blade? (VIDEO)

Description Almost every vehicle on the road has a longer wiper blade on the driver side. On older vehicles, you’ll also see two of the same size wipers working together. But can you think of any models that have the longer wiper blade on the passenger side?Related...

The Shop Press Automotive Paragon series: a recap

If you read Shop Press regularly you've noticed we’ve been running a series for the past couple of years. It’s called “Automotive Paragons,” and it’s a series where we look at automotive entrepreneurs, designers, and engineers who were exceptional, ahead of their...

Minimum rotor thickness – ASE practice questions (VIDEO)

Description Technician A says the minimum rotor thickness specification etched into a disc is the minimum thickness beyond which a brake rotor should not be used. Technician B says the number indicates the minimum thickness to which the rotor can be machined. Who is...

Battery date codes are painfully unstandardized and you’re better off without them

While diagnosing an electrical issue last week, I suspected that the battery was tired. The terminals were banged up, the case was covered in grime, and the manufacturer’s decal was peeling and faded. It barely passed a quick health check, so I started looking for a...

Using a spaghetti trick to keep zip ties organized (VIDEO)

Description Chefs know a helpful hack to keep spaghetti from falling out of an opened bag, and the same idea happens to work perfectly for zip ties. Give it a try next time you have a pack of zip ties that doesn’t have a resealable closure.Related Videos

Book review: “Pump and Circumstance”

Recently I was organizing my books on a new bookshelf and came across one that I had almost forgotten about. I picked it up after seeing an exhibition called “See the USA: Automobile Travel and the American Landscape” at the Building Museum when I lived in D.C. The...

California predicts zero-emission vehicles could eliminate 1 out of 7 auto repair jobs [Updated]

by Lee Procida | Jun 14, 2022

As California goes, so does car care. The Golden State’s instituted some of the nation’s strictest emissions standards, partly because it’s generally progressive, and partly because it’s had some of the nation’s worst air pollution. Automakers and other states have...

Should a repair shop be liable for fixing a vehicle involved in a hit and run?

by Lee Procida | Apr 12, 2022

In 2016, 8-year-old Jayanna Powell was killed by a car while walking home from school. The driver fled, and had an accomplice take his damaged Nissan Altima to a body shop in the next county. The shop owner called the police after seeing on TV that they were looking...

Godspeed, Pat

by Lemmy | Mar 24, 2022

Pat Goss died on March 19, 2022, at the age of 77. Pat owned auto repair shops in Maryland, and he also was heard on the radio, where he hosted multiple car shows. Pat also made a weekly appearance on YouTube for many years, but you probably know him best for the...

Meet the best auto tech in the United States

by Lee Procida | Feb 22, 2022

When Logan Brown first heard about a national auto technician skills competition, he was slightly skeptical. “Who the hell’s going to pay a technician $40,000 to show off his skills?” he said recently. The answer was the first annual U.S. Auto Tech National...

What the first federal right-to-repair law could mean for auto service shops

by Lee Procida | Feb 5, 2022

New legislation in Congress would require automakers to provide independent repair shops with all information and tools necessary to service their motor vehicles, the first such law proposed in the United States and the latest in a series of moves nationwide to...

That viral repair shop who paid an employee in pennies? Yep, it’s getting sued.

by Lee Procida | Jan 6, 2022

In a shining example of how to probably not treat your employees, a car repair shop in Georgia went viral in March 2021 for paying a disgruntled former manager by dumping more than 90,000 pennies, possibly covered in power steering fluid, in a pile at the end of his...