Ask The Master Auto Technician with James Morris Fox 2. WPGX WFLA Fox News Radio. Please select your question. Do you remember car repair in 1. James Auto Center opened its doors in September 2. Our mission was to take care of customers car service and repair needs. Things have changed a lot since 1. Cars had points and condensers that needed to be changed every 3 to 5,0. The most popular oil weight was 1. Carburetors needed to be rebuilt every few years to keep the gas mileage respectable. Cars rarely lasted 1. Repair information for shops consisted of two or three service manuals depending if you worked on foreign or American cars. A test light, dwell meter, compression gauge and vacuum gauge and voltohm meter were about the only diagnostic tools needed to diagnose and repair cars and trucks. Repair tickets were written by hand and collected sales tax was sent by mail to the state of Florida by the 2. Labor rates now are close to 1. Minimum wage is 7. Electronic ignition systems go 1. Fuel injection provides better performance and better fuel mileage. Two hundred to three hundred thousand miles on a car is common to still be on the road. Most cars over 7 years old have more than 1. The proper weight oil to use now is 5w. Information needed to diagnoserepair cars can be purchased instantly on line. Last Update7152012 1211 am Official PBB Toyota BibleFAQ Welcome to the new Toyota Bible and FAQ. With so many holes and issues with lost. Diagnostic equipment consists of laptop computers, digital lab scopes, and special software with sophisticated programs. Sales tax must be submitted on line, so that it will come out of the business checking account instantly. Yes, there have been a lot of changes over the last 3. What has not changed is customers wanting to have a locally owned family business that is trustworthy and professional that treats its customers like family. On Friday the 2. 8th of September James Auto Center 1. E 1. 1th Street Panama City, Florida will have an open house for all. From 1. 1 0. 0 to 1 0. Please mark your calendar and join us Friday, September 2. James Auto Center from 1. We look forward to seeing our friends, customers and former employees to help us celebrate our 3. Peace and Prosperity to all. James, I have a 2001 Toyota Tundra with a 4. 7 liter automatic transmission. It only has 60,000 miles on it and I dont know if I need to change the timing belt or not. EHow Auto gets you on the fast track with repair, maintenance, and shopping advice. Whether youre jump starting a battery or insuring a new car, we can help. Black Smoke and Check Engine Lights, Oh my Hi. I have a 2. 00. Avalanche with a 5. Vortec engine, automatic transmission. I went on a road trip from about 6. Idaho, thru mountains, and ended at around 1. Up and down trip. Then on the way home, some 1. I didnt notice any reason for it, and runs super while driving. Now it is real bad Blows black smoke, and stumbles badly. Check engine light is on with engine code of random misfire PO3. What do you suggest I do Clunk that Stumps the Car Experts. I read your section in the Lynn Haven Ledger and have a question that, so far, has stumped the car experts. I have a 2. 00. 3 Buick Century four door. Every few months I experience the following. I stop for a stop sign or signal and when I start off again it is like someone hit the car from the rear. Usually it is enough that I feel like I was hit by someone going 1. It may happen once on a given day and then nothing for several weeks or months. It seems to definitely be in the rear but with front wheel drive the only thing I know of in the rear is the rear axle, differential, brakes, gas tank If it happened every time I stop maybe the problem could be more easily isolated. Any ideas Lynn Haven Florida. I dont know who the car experts were that you have talked to. So I decided to look for a TSB for clunk or bang from rear of vehicle. Sure enough, there is one dated August 2. A. It affects 2. 00. Buick Century, Chevy Impala, Monte Carlo, and Pontiac Gran Prix. The article states that customers may complain about clunkbang type noise when a vehicle comes to a stop or during parking lot maneuvers, when the fuel tank is to full of gasoline. The noise is due to fuel sloshing in the fuel tank and a broken baffle in the fuel tank. The correction is to replace the fuel tank with PN 1. This is why it is so important for car owners like you, to find repair shops that have computer databases for information. I have several information sources I use such as Alldatapro, Napafix and i. ATN. net. With this type of information todays auto repair shops can get help to problems that used to take hours and sometimes days to figure out. So when you have a car problem with your vehicle find a repair shop that has access to this information. It will save you money and time, in this busy world we live in, time is moneyLive long and prosper. James, I have two questions, the first is for my 5. TBI engine, I just replaced the radiator, water pump with belts and new hoses. I also replaced the thermostat. I believe the thermostat rated for this vehicle is a 1. I put in a 1. 80 degree thermostat and the engine still seems to be heating up more than I would like. Would I be hurting anything by going to a 1. Secondly, The AC is not working and I believe the compressor seals have popped. I dont really want to go to the new R1. I will have to replace the entire system which will be very expensive. Do you think there would be any chance of anyone being able to help me get my existing system going Thanks for any ideas you have. I hear a lot of people tell me that they dont make cars like they used too. They seem to like the idea of points and plugs and no computers to mess up on their vehicles. So lets look at the reason most people long for the car of yesteryear. They were easy to work on. There was lots of room in the engine compartment. There were no electronics to speak of. Here is the reality of the car of yesterday when I started working on them in the late 6. They were hard to work on. There never was enough room in the engine compartment. Electronic ignition and vacuum lines was very complex. Looking back we seem to romanticize about our first car or our best friends car. In our minds eye they always seemed to run better and look better in our memories. In reality most American made cars were worn out by the time they reached 7. It seemed like every time you turned around you had to drop it off at the shop for its 3,0. Plug wires and distributor caps were needed to be changed every 1. As your vehicle points wore out the timing changed and your fuel mileage went down hill. If that wasnt enough to upset you, the carburetor would flood out and leave you stranded. If you were able to do your own tune ups to keep your car running in tip top shape, then the cars bodies would rust out after just a few years. Now it was time to trade your car in and purchase a new one. Then in 7. 0s the Japanese started sending over cheaper, smaller cars that got great gas mileage. They ran and ran with very little maintenance and upkeep. These cars didnt rust out like the American made cars and were a great value. Americans started voting with their wallets and purchased the foreign cars over the American made cars. The American car industry took notice and started producing better made cars, safer cars, and more fuel efficient cars. Of course it seemed to be too little too late. Out of the Big 3 only Ford did not file bankruptcy or take a Bailout. Americans continued to vote with their wallets, now Ford is taking the lead in sales over its competition GM. Maybe this is why Government Motors is tearing up their biggest competition, Toyota. It is uncertain that anything, anything at all, is wrong with Toyotas products. Yet the media and government are tearing at the company like a pack of wolves after an injured deer. How long will it be before Ford is in the crosshairs of Government Motors If you cant produce a better car then make up a story about how unsafe your competitions car is. President Lincoln said once during a debate if a cat uses its tail as a leg how many legs does it have His opponent stated five at which Lincoln stated, no, four. Just saying it doesnt make it so. Live long and Prosper. Top 1. 0 business practices that drive auto repair shops out of business. Not insisting the customer go for a test drive before you do ANY work on their vehicle. This protects the shop owner from problems undetected by the customer before work is done on the vehicle. By driving the vehicle before work is started, vibrations and noise issues can be pointed out as well as dash warning lights that may be on. Or safety items such as brakes or loose steering may be brought to the customers attention before your shop touches the vehicle. A repair shop not having a computer data base for information with Technical Service Bulletins and current repair procedures.