Should Upper St. Clair drivers use nitrogen in their tires? Air’s air, right? Well it turns out there is a difference. At the heart of the matter is maintaining proper tire inflation. When your family car tires are properly inflated, they last longer, handle better and more safely and they save money at Upper St. Clair gas pumps.

The problem is that tires filled with air can lose a pound and a half of air pressure every month. This just happens as the oxygen in the tire seeps out as you drive around Upper St. Clair. So if you don’t check your pressure for a month or two you can be significantly low – low enough to affect handling, shorten tire life and waste money at the fuel pump. Tires filled with nitrogen will take about six months to lose as much pressure as regular air does in a month. So it’s more forgiving of those Upper St. Clair drivers who don’t check their pressure every week.

Also, oxygen at higher temperatures – like those inside your tire when you’ve been driving for a while – oxidizes the inside of your tire. Getting the oxygen out of your tire means that it’ll last longer.

So who’s using nitrogen? Let’s start with NASCAR and Indy. These racers like nitrogen’s ability to maintain consistent tire pressure and reduce tire temperatures under very demanding conditions. The U.S. government requires all commercial aircraft to have nitrogen in their tires. NASA and the U.S. Military use nitrogen. The mining industry has been filling those ginormous tires with nitrogen for years. PA Semi-trucks and trailers are starting to use nitrogen extensively. These guys chart everything they do and they invest in the benefits of nitrogen.

The good news is that nitrogen fill doesn’t cost very much or take long at Calabro Tire & Auto Service in Upper St. Clair. It doesn’t affect your tire warranty. If you decide that nitrogen is right for your family car tires, remember that it’s still important to check your tire pressure regularly. You might have a leak that needs to be fixed. And you can always top your tire off with regular air if you need to.

If you have questions about nitrogen, battery service or windshield treatment, give Ricky Mayfield a call at Calabro Tire & Auto Service in Upper St. Clair. We’ve been providing professional automotive services in Upper St. Clair for 16 years.

Calabro Tire & Auto Service
412.221.4300
1476 Bower Hill Road
Upper St. Clair, PA 15241

At Calabro Tire & Auto Service in Upper St. Clair PA (15241) we install quality NAPA replacement parts. Give us a call at 412.221.4300. To learn more about NAPA AutoCare, visit www.NAPAAutoCare.com.

Your family car cooling system’s job is to keep your engine cool. Coolant (also called antifreeze) mixed with water flows through your engine and absorbs heat. The mixture then flows out to the radiator where it’s cooled by air flowing over the radiator. From there the cooled mix circulates back through the family car engine to absorb more heat.

Coolant, or antifreeze, is specially formulated to keep your engine safe in a wide range of environmental and operating temperatures in Upper St. Clair.

Without coolant, the family car’s metal engine parts would expand so much that the engine would seize up and stop running.  Expensive parts could be broken or warp so badly they would have to be replaced at Calabro Tire & Auto Service in Upper St. Clair. It could even be so bad that the whole engine is ruined and has to be replaced.

Also, if it’s freezing outside in Upper St. Clair, the water in your engine could freeze while your vehicle is sitting out in the PA cold. This is why you check coolant levels frequently and have your cooling system inspected for leaks. Also your manufacturer has a maintenance requirement for draining and replacing your coolant. These recommendations can vary widely, so check your Upper St. Clair owner’s manual or ask your service advisor at Calabro Tire & Auto Service in Upper St. Clair.

The reason you need to change the coolant is that it has additives in it to protect the cooling system. As you can imagine, with all the heat, the cooling system’s a pretty harsh environment. The additives keep the fluid from becoming corrosive and damaging the radiator and other Upper St. Clair cooling system components. Over time, the additives are depleted and the coolant just has to be replaced. A simple pH test can measure the coolant’s acidity.

You may have noticed that there are different colors of antifreeze at Calabro Tire & Auto Service: it is very important that you use the correct type.  The different coolant types are different colors so you don’t mix them up.  Manufacturers use different materials to make the cooling system, and they require different types of antifreeze to protect them.

So check with your helpful Calabro Tire & Auto Service service advisor or owner’s manual for the right kind because using the wrong coolant can void the warranty for your family car cooling system.

Ask us about headlamp service, windshield treatment and windshield wipers.

Give us a call

Calabro Tire & Auto Service
412.221.4300
1476 Bower Hill Road
Upper St. Clair, PA 15241

At Calabro Tire & Auto Service in Upper St. Clair PA (15241) we install quality NAPA replacement parts. Give us a call at 412.221.4300. To learn more about NAPA AutoCare, visit www.NAPAAutoCare.com.

Most Upper St. Clair area car owners don’t service their air conditioning until after it fails. Maintaining your family car air conditioning system means that you always have enough refrigerant to properly do the job. Small leaks in the air conditioning system allow the refrigerant to escape and the system can’t cool the air as well.

Along with the refrigerant, a special oil circulates in the system. The oil lubricates air conditioning components, and keeps the seals resilient. Low refrigerant and lubricating oil means that the air conditioning parts will wear out prematurely, and we all know that air conditioning repairs can be costly in Bridgeville.

Air conditioning service at Calabro Tire & Auto Service in Upper St. Clair starts with a visual inspection of the components for signs of damage or leaks. The compressor is driven by a belt from the engine, most often the serpentine belt, so it’s inspected for cracks or wear.

The air conditioning compressor and other components are checked for proper operation by your Calabro Tire & Auto Service service advisor. Then comes the leak test. If a leak is detected, often in a hose or connection, it’s repaired and the family car system is retested. Your Calabro Tire & Auto Service technician will also perform a temperature drop test.

If needed, the old refrigerant is evacuated and the system is recharged with clean, fresh refrigerant. A final test insures that the air conditioner is working, and you’re on your way.

How often this should be done at Calabro Tire & Auto Service varies from vehicle to vehicle. Your family car owner’s manual will have the manufacturer’s recommendation and, of course, your helpful Calabro Tire & Auto Service service advisor can tell you. It’s typically every two years.

Give us a call

Calabro Tire & Auto Service
1476 Bower Hill Road
Upper St. Clair, PA 15241

At Calabro Tire & Auto Service in Upper St. Clair PA (15241) we install quality NAPA replacement parts. Give us a call at 412.221.4300. To learn more about NAPA AutoCare, visit www.NAPAAutoCare.com.

Car batteries wear out just like any other battery and need to be replaced. There are a couple of things Upper St. Clair family car owners should know when looking for a new car battery: one is cold cranking amps and the other is reserve capacity.

Let’s start with cold cranking amps. This can be thought of as the power output used to start a cold family car engine. The number of cold cranking amps you need depends on your vehicle and where you live around Upper St. Clair, specifically how cold it is where you live. The two factors are that the colder an engine is, the more power it takes to turn the family car engine over to get it started. It has all that cold, sluggish oil to contend with. The other factor is that the chemical reaction in the battery that creates electrical energy is less efficient in the cold.

So the colder it gets in Upper St. Clair, more power is needed, but the available power drops.

If you live where it’s cold, you need a battery with more cold cranking amps than you do where it’s moderate or hot. You should always get at least as many cold cranking amps as the manufacturer recommends, but may want to upgrade at Calabro Tire & Auto Service if you live where it gets real cold.

An important note: Batteries may also list the Cranking Amps – CA – number. It is the Cold Cranking Amps – or CCA – that is the important number here. CCA is the number to use in your comparisons.

Now with all this talk of cold temperatures in Upper St. Clair, it’s important to note that heat is the real enemy of long battery life. In other words, the damage that’s done over the hot summer months in Upper St. Clair shows up with the increased demands on the family car battery when the weather turns cold.

Now on to reserve capacity: It’s a measurement of the number of minutes of reserve power the battery has at a given load. The number is more important these days because of parasitic drain. Parasitic drain is the battery energy that’s used when the key is off. So the power drawn by the family car security system, the remote start system, even the power the family car computers require to maintain their memory.

Reserves are also needed when you make very short trips around Upper St. Clair. You’re not driving long enough for the battery to recover the energy it used to start the family car engine.

So go with the minimum recommended by your manufacturer and upgrade if you need more. Talk with your helpful Calabro Tire & Auto Service service advisor about options. If you need more from your battery, a larger capacity battery may be called for.

Batteries are a big ticket item for most Upper St. Clair motorists, so the warranty gives peace of mind. Be sure to ask about the car battery warranty at Calabro Tire & Auto Service so you know what you’re getting. At Calabro Tire & Auto Service, we have been providing quality auto service in Upper St. Clair for 16 years.

Give us a call

Calabro Tire & Auto Service
1476 Bower Hill Road
Upper St. Clair, PA 15241

At Calabro Tire & Auto Service in Upper St. Clair PA (15241) we install quality NAPA replacement parts. Give us a call at 412.221.4300. To learn more about NAPA AutoCare, visit www.NAPAAutoCare.com.

With front-wheel drive being so common in Upper St. Clair these days, the differential is just taken care of during a transmission service, so most Upper St. Clair folks don’t even have to think about it. And most rear-wheel drive family car differentials don’t need to be serviced for many miles, so it’s understandable that it’s not something on the top of mind. So it’s not uncommon for PA people to not know they have a differential let alone know that it needs service.

To better understand what a differential does, think about a high school track. There are lanes marked off on the track. For the longer distance races, the starting lines are staggered. The starting lines for the outside lanes are ahead of the starting lines for the inside lanes. That’s to compensate for the longer length of the outside lanes. Staggering the starting lines means that each runner has the same distance to run.

The differential compensates for the difference in speeds on drive wheels between the inside wheel and the outside wheel in a turn, because they have to travel together through slightly different distances.

Many family car differentials do a lot of work and require very heavy duty parts. And those parts need protection. The differential fluid lubricates the gears in the differential and keeps them cool. The fluid eventually gets dirty and worn down. Some kinds of differentials require special additives that break down over time. So manufacturers and Calabro Tire & Auto Service technicians recommend intervals for replacing your differential fluid.

Your Calabro Tire & Auto Service service technician will drain the used fluid and check it out for metal bits, which could be a sign of excessive wear on the gears. He’ll then replace the fluid and install the additives if necessary.

Upper St. Clair four wheel drive family cars need special attention to their differentials because they have a differential on both the front and rear axles that work at different times and sometimes under heavy loads – so they may need to be serviced at Calabro Tire & Auto Service at different intervals.

Your Upper St. Clair service advisor can look up the manufacturer’s recommended service interval or you can check your family car owner’s manual.

Give us a call

Calabro Tire & Auto Service
412.221.4300
1476 Bower Hill Road
Upper St. Clair, PA 15241

At Calabro Tire & Auto Service in Upper St. Clair PA (15241) we install quality NAPA replacement parts. Give us a call at 412.221.4300. To learn more about NAPA AutoCare, visit www.NAPAAutoCare.com.

The crankcase is the bottom area of the engine that holds the oil. When the family car engine’s running, fuel is burned to generate power. Most of the exhaust from combustion goes out through the exhaust system. But some exhaust blows by the pistons and goes into the lower engine, or crankcase.

These hot gases are about seventy percent unburned fuel. This can dilute and contaminate the oil, leading to damaging engine oil sludge. It can also cause engine corrosion in your family car. At high speeds, the pressure can build up to the point that gaskets and seals start to leak.

Clairton car owners need to know that over time, the vented gases will gum up the PCV valve and it won’t work well. That can lead to all of the problems I’ve already described, oil leaks, excessive oil consumption and wasted gas.

Fortunately, it’s very easy to test the PCV valve and quick and inexpensive to replace it at Calabro Tire & Auto Service. Even so, it’s often overlooked because many Clairton drivers don’t know about it.

Check your family car owner’s manual or ask your Calabro Tire & Auto Service advisor. If this is the first time you’ve heard of a PCV valve, you might be in line for a PCV valve replacement.

Please ask us about your PCV valve. For the price of a couple of burger combo meals, you can avoid some very expensive deep engine repairs.

At Calabro Tire & Auto Service in Upper St. Clair PA (15241) we install quality NAPA replacement parts. Give us a call at 412.221.4300. To learn more about NAPA AutoCare, visit www.NAPAAutoCare.com.

Let’s focus on stopping in wet Upper St. Clair conditions. In order for a tire to have good contact with the road, it has to move the water out of the way. If it can’t move the water, the tire will actually ride on top of a thin film of water.

That’s called hydroplaning. At Calabro Tire & Auto Service we want our customers to know that if it’s really bad, you can actually spin out of control. At best, you won’t stop as fast.

So how does a tire move water? It has channels for water to flow through. Look at a tire and you’ll see channels: channels that run around the tire and channels that flow across the tire. They’re designed to direct water away from the tire so it can contact the road better.

And the deeper the channel, the more water it can move. A brand new tire has very deep channels and can easily move a lot of water. As the tire wears down, the channels become shallower and can move less water. When it wears down enough, it can seriously affect your ability to stop on wet Upper St. Clair roads.

So that’s why it’s so important for Upper St. Clair drivers to replace the tires on their family cars when they get worn. Consumer Reports and other advocate groups call for a standard of 3/32 of an inch and they have the studies to prove it.

By comparison, you’ve probably seen the wear indicator that’s molded into tires. When tires are worn 3/32 of an inch, the tread wear bar is visible. So the recommended standard has twice the tread depth as a completely worn out tire.

And that little bit of additional tread makes a big difference. Stopping distances are cut dramatically on wet roads. A safe stop from PA freeway speeds with 4/32 of an inch of tread would result in a crash with worn out tires.

There’s an easy way to tell when a tire’s worn to 4/32 of an inch. Just insert a quarter into the tread. Put it in upside down. If the tread doesn’t cover George Washington’s hairline, it’s time to replace your tires. With a Canadian quarter, the tread should cover the numbers in the year stamp.

You’ve probably heard of this technique using a penny and Abe Lincoln’s head. That measure gives you 2/32 of an inch – half the suggested amount.

Of course, tires are a big ticket item for Upper St. Clair car owners. Most of us want to get as many miles out of them as we can. But there’s a real safety trade-off. It’s your choice.

At Calabro Tire & Auto Service in Upper St. Clair PA (15241) we install quality NAPA replacement parts. Give us a call at 412.221.4300. To learn more about NAPA AutoCare, visit www.NAPAAutoCare.com.

Now when you hear “severe service”, you may think it doesn’t apply to you because you don’t feel your driving conditions are severe or extreme – it’s just normal everyday driving around Bridgeville. At Calabro Tire & Auto Service, we discuss the conditions that manufacturers classify as severe so that you can make the judgment on your own driving.

• Most trips are less than four miles
• Most trips are less than ten miles and outside temperatures are below freezing in Bridgeville
• You drive in very hot PA weather
• Driving at low speed most of the time (under 55 mph)
• Stop and go driving
• Operating your vehicle in dusty, polluted or muddy conditions
• You tow a trailer, regularly carry heavy loads or carry a car-top carrier on your family car

Most Bridgeville drivers operate under severe driving conditions at least some of the time. How do you know which schedule to follow for your family car?

Carefully think about your driving conditions and decide if you should do your preventive maintenance closer to the severe service recommendation or the regular recommendation. Of course, your Calabro Tire & Auto Service advisor can help you with your decision.

At Calabro Tire & Auto Service in Upper St. Clair PA (15241) we install quality NAPA replacement parts. Give us a call at 412.221.4300. To learn more about NAPA AutoCare, visit www.NAPAAutoCare.com.

In addition to just wearing out, Calabro Tire & Auto Service customers need to know that suspension components can be damaged in an accident or by a hard impact – like a pothole, hitting a curb or a rock in the road.

Because the life span of shocks can vary so widely, your family car manufacturer and Calabro Tire & Auto Service recommend periodic inspections. During an inspection, your Dravosburg service technician will check for worn, broken or missing parts.

Signs that shocks or struts are wearing out: The tires may have a cupped wear pattern. This is from the shocks bouncing unevenly as you drive around Dravosburg. You may notice a floaty or drifting sensation when cornering. If the front of your family car dives excessively when stopping, or rocks back and forth after you stopped, your shocks may be worn out. And if they are leaking fluid, it’s definitely time to replace them.

If you are experiencing any of these symptoms, come into Calabro Tire & Auto Service for a suspension inspection. Same if you’ve been in an accident that involved one of your wheels. Worn or broken shocks can cause premature wear or failure on other family car suspension parts such as ball joints and other steering components as well. If your suspension actually fails, it could lead to a serious accident, so let us take care of your suspension components at Calabro Tire & Auto Service.

When you replace your shocks, it’s usually a good idea to replace all four at the same time. That’ll give you more even handling. Talk with your service advisor at Calabro Tire & Auto Service because you don’t want a big difference between the performance of your shocks from wheel to wheel, and replacing all may be the safest bet.

At Calabro Tire & Auto Service in Upper St. Clair PA (15241) we install quality NAPA replacement parts. Give us a call at 412.221.4300. To learn more about NAPA AutoCare, visit www.NAPAAutoCare.com.

First, the serpentine belt drives your air conditioning system. Next, the belt powers the alternator.

The serpentine belt may also run the pumps for both the power steering and power brakes. In some family cars, power steering may have an electric drive and power brakes can be vacuum driven.

And, on many vehicles, the serpentine belt powers the water pump (on some cars, the water pump is powered by the timing belt).

Your Calabro Tire & Auto Service service technician can perform a visual inspection of the belt to see if it has any cracks that signal the belt could fail soon and will measure the amount of belt material to make sure there is enough.

Upper St. Clair drivers should be aware that there’s a special, spring loaded pulley attached to the engine called the tensioner pulley and sometimes an extra pulley call the idler pulley. Their job is to make sure there’s a constant tension on the serpentine belt so that it doesn’t slip. The spring can become worn and no longer provide the necessary pressure to keep the belt tight. That’s why it’s often recommended that the tensioner, and the idler pulley if so equipped, be replaced at the same time as the serpentine belt.

All in all, the serpentine belt’s an important part for the function of your family car. And it’s not that expensive to replace at Calabro Tire & Auto Service – so it’s good to do so before it fails.

At Calabro Tire & Auto Service in Upper St. Clair PA (15241) we install quality NAPA replacement parts. Give us a call at 412.221.4300. To learn more about NAPA AutoCare, visit www.NAPAAutoCare.com.