Automotive Industry News & Information - D & E Service Center

When something goes wrong with your vehicle, it can be tempting to take the cheapest route. With eBay, Amazon, and the countless other sources for car and truck parts on the market today, many people decide to go that route to save some money. Here we choose only quality automotive parts for our Andover, NJ driver at D & E Service Center because we want to ensure their parts match our commitment to providing them high quality repairs.

If you own or operate a fleet or commercial truck, you know it’s hard to keep everything working perfectly all the time. You have to choose what to give priority to, and what can wait. However, some small problems are indicators that a bigger issue is on the way. At D & E Service Center in Andover, NJ, our goal is to keep you and your fleet going.

Part of maintaining your vehicle is keeping its safety devices in good working order, especially when there are kids in the vehicle. Seat belts, window locks, and airbag sensors work together to keep children safe in an automobile. Though safety components are generally very reliable, they do occasionally fail. D & E Service Center in Andover, NJ is here when they do; here are some things to watch out for.

At D & E Service Center in Andover, NJ, maintaining your fleet and keeping your business reliably on the road is our primary focus. As trucks wear out, and they always do, you will inevitably be faced with this dilemma - “Should I fix this truck, or replace it with a new one?” This isn’t always an easy question to answer. As your fleet specialists, our team here at D & E Service Center is here to help you decide.

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.