Automotive News & Information - D & E Service Center

If you drive a car, truck, or SUV with a manual transmission, you may have heard the term “pilot bearing” or “pilot bushing” before. At D & E Service Center in Andover, we know that the first step to keeping your vehicle maintained is knowing something about how it works. Here’s some helpful information on the pilot bearing, and how to know if yours needs to be replaced.

In the diesel world, "blow-by" is a term you're bound to run across at some point if your line of work involves diesel-powered vehicles of any kind. What is blow-by, what causes it, and how concerned should you be? At D & E Service Center in Andover, NJ, our fleet maintenance and diesel technicians see it on a regular basis. Here we'll take a quick look at blow-by, correcting it, and preventing it.

What is Blow-By? - Diesel blow-by is a term that describes an event of lost compression into the crankcase. Blow-by occurs whenever a burnt or unburnt fuel and air mixture escape from the cylinder and past the piston rings and into the crankcase. In a perfect world, the piston would be sealed tightly in the cylinder, able to move up and down but keeping all the air and fuel and exhaust that enters or exits the cylinder during the combustion process out of the crankcase. As you'll see, this perfect world doesn't exist, but it is important to minimize the amount of blow-by in a diesel engine.

Unless you are confident in your abilities as an automotive mechanic, there is really only one rule when purchasing a flood-damaged vehicle: don’t do it. Unfortunately, sometimes sellers aren’t particularly straight-forward with their used cars. Many will try to hide the fact that it’s been damaged by floodwaters at all or try to convince potential buyers that the car is in fact fine. “It has gone months with no issues” or “technically it is flood-damaged but” are two red flags, and while it isn’t impossible for a flood car to be fine, it’s altogether a good idea to stay away.

At D & E Service Center in Andover, we understand all too well the importance of changing your oil regularly. Three to five thousand miles sounds like a lot, but it doesn’t really take that long to rack them up. The busier you are, the more you probably drive, and the more likely you are to forget it’s time to change your oil. Here are some reasons to pay attention to your oil changes, and help you better understand why oil changes are so important.

Every year, more and more trucks come equipped with turbochargers. What was once a novelty or a performance option has become increasingly common as stock equipment. What are they for, and how do they work? D & E Service Center in Andover, NJ is here to help.

The turbo on your diesel pickup is a precision-engineered component. As a result, proper maintenance is essential to keeping it going strong. At tens or even hundreds of thousands of RPM, keeping everything in good shape is absolutely necessary. Fortunately, turbos don’t really require any special maintenance - they just make the maintenance you do all the more important.

If you drive a car with a manual transmission, you’ve undoubtedly been told that you’re supposed to downshift to slow down, instead of relying completely on the brakes. But what is the science behind that, and does it matter? D & E Service Center in Andover explains.

Dirty Hands Working on a diesel truck engine

Keeping your fuel system maintained will prevent premature parts failure and poor running conditions. Here are some important aspects of diesel fuel system maintenance, to keep your fleet running smoothly. While your system and components should typically be serviced by a professional technician, there are some things you can be conscious of that will go a long way toward keeping your engine in good shape.