At Honest Wrenches, we strive to educate rather than just sell to our clients, so that we can make the best-informed decision to suit their needs and timeline of their vehicle. We find that transmission fluid service is a subject that our customers have questions on. So, do you need to service your transmission fluid? The short answer is yes.   The myth that if you service your transmission fluid, your transmission will go out, is absolutely false. The job of transmission fluid is to clean, cool, and lubricate the internal components of your transmission. This means that over time, the transmission fluid will lose its lubricity, as well as the ability to clean and cool the transmission so you’ll need to service it so that your system will work properly. This is especially true during the summer months when it’s so hot out, as your transmission fluid will further degrade at high temperatures.   When servicing, flushing, or changing your transmission flu ... read more

  Last time, we discussed the types of warranties and the pitfalls of the extended warranty as a whole. Basically, warranty companies have a much higher chance of benefiting from your purchase of an extended warranty than you are because it’s not as likely that your warranty will cover something you actually need replaced in the time you have it. In the event that you are covered under warranty and the extended warranty company accepts fault, in many cases they will battle with the repair facility and tell them what quality of part they want to install on the car and then ask us to back it with our warranty and put it in writing for them. Depending on how far you are in your warranty will really determine what they decide on parts, but we often see  requests to install used parts. Naturally, a customer expects that they will be receiving a new replacement, just like they would with home insurance– if the roof goes bad, it’ll be replaced with a new roof&hell ... read more

We’re all familiar with questions about a car’s extended warranty, but is having an extended warranty even worth purchasing? We want to preface our answer by clarifying that not all extended warranty companies are terrible, but there are some companies that give their industry a certain reputation. However, it’s completely up to you to decide what you think and whether or not an extended warranty suits your needs, so we want to ensure you have all the information you need to make this decision. First, let's dive into some of the different types of extended warranties.   The basic extended warranty (sometimes called bronze) package will be an extremely basic warranty. It will only have coverage up to a certain amount of money per hour paid out, as well as it generally will only cover half of the bill up to a maximum amount. Usually, it covers internally lubricated parts of the engine and transmission.   The plus extended warranty (or silver) package wi ... read more

Coolant System Servicing   On Tuesday, we went over how often to service your car’s coolant. But how does that service work?   Can I just drain it and refill it?   Draining and filling the cooling system is only going to drain the radiator in most cases, which only contains approximately 50% of the system's fluid. The best way to change your engine coolant is to use a machine that will hook directly into the vehicle’s cooling system line and allow you to operate the vehicle with the system hooked up. When you follow this, it gives you the ability to add a ‘cooling system cleaner’ such as ‘BG Cooling System Cleaner Kit’ into the system. Then, get the vehicle up to operating temperature so the thermostat opens and the cleaner gets throughout the system to do its job. Now you’ll be able to transfer the old coolant from the system and replace it with new coolant using the machine. You’ll want to flush double the capac ... read more