Tucson Auto Repair

Summer a can be a joyful time in Arizona, filled with the smell of mesquite trees, cactus flowers and Torrential rains. But it’s also a season of sweltering heat. The high temperatures in Arizona can push your car’s air conditioning to its absolute limits as you drive to your favorite restaurant or a friends home. Broken air conditioning can ruin your fun, leave you sweating, grumpy and even in the "dog house" with your spouse who has been telling you for months to get the AC system checked. Thankfully, you can still take steps to keep your air conditioning running and the good times and relationships going. Regular AC Maintenance: Air conditioning systems need regular maintenance to operate at peak performance like any other car component. It’s never too late for One Stop Automotive to perform an ac system check. Hopefully catching potential problems early and preventing expensive repairs and terrible hot road trips. Servicing Your HVAC System: Unlike regu ... read more

Vehicle manufacturers have maintenance schedules that should be followed at the very minimum. Having worked at a dealership in the past and still having many contacts in the automotive industry, we would recommend more maintenance. I have been told that the manufacturers established these maintenance schedules to show a lower maintenance cost over the life of the vehicle rather than for increasing the life of the vehicle. During the sales pitch, the dealership will show you that you can go 100k before certain services are due. This is not entirely accurate. Modern vehicles run much hotter than older vehicles and should actually be serviced more often. Some dealers claim you can go a full year without changing engine oil. It's your vehicle and you can do as you choose, engine oil should be changed at a minimum of twice a year or at most, 6000k. Modern vehicles have computers that monitor oil life, and many are set to alert you to change the oil at 7500 miles. We frequently see vehi ... read more

Its Arizona Car-B-Que Season As Arizona residents, we all know the horrors of jumping into a hot car during summer months, while wearing shorts and putting on those red hot sunglasses. First, after you have sought medical attention for the seven layers of skin you have lost from the back of your legs and possible permanent branding to your face from those sun glasses, we can look into summer vehicle maintenance for your sun baked car.  During the summers in Arizona when temperatures regularly reach around 100-120 degrees, the temperatures inside of your vehicle can easily reach around 150 degrees. Some people have even claimed the temperature in their vehicle MUST be around 1 million degrees, but most likely those are exaggerations. But we use these examples to make it easier to understand the affects of our severe weather on vehicles.  Summer heat and sun cause some serious damage, the worst to plastic and rubber components, ie... tires, belts, hoses ... read more

                     The term "serpentine belt" may bring up images of a scarey snake like object crawling around you engine, and that's actually pretty accurate, (except for the scary part).  The serpentine belt is a long, belt that winds it way (like a serpent) around many of your vehicle's components. These can include the power the steering pump, alternator, and air conditioning compressor, and more, to the vehicle's crankshaft pulley. In some engines, the serpentine belt can also run the water pump, radiator fan, and supercharger. Years ago, most engines had several V-type belts, but today, most modern engines have one ribbed serpentine belt responsible for running all of the accessory components. This belt can be tensioned automatically or manually. Automatically tensioned serpentine belts are the most common and are kept taught with a spring loaded tensioning mechanism. Manually tensio ... read more

The engine and transmission in your vehicle are attached to the chassis. When they operate, it creates flexing and twisting from torque or vibrations. There are mounts that hold and support these two units. Mounts for the Engine and transmission are most typically made of metal and rubber, or somtimes filled with a hydraulic fluid. These mounts keep your teeth from vibrating out of your skull by separating the transmission and engine from the chassis so that there is no direct metal on metal contact between the engine, transmission and frame of the vehicle. To improve passenger comfort, some vehicles have fluid-filled hydraulic mounts which absorb and dampen vibrations that would otherwise pass right through a conventional solid rubber mount. While comfort is something we all enjoy, fluid-filled mounts are more expensive than solid rubber mounts, and they can leak fluid and can still collapse after years of service. Some import vehicles have electronically-controlled mounts that can ... read more