Boise Auto Repair

Since Jan. 1, we've only had two days where the temperature reached above freezing and it's regularly been in the single digits and teens. Cold weather reduces a battery's effectiveness and a dead battery could endanger your life if you're stranded in freezing weather. This article at Fifthgear sums it up well. Cold weather reduces a battery's ability to hold a charge and to accept recharging (really hot weather is just as bad but we'll get into that later). Modern cars especially have lots of electronics that suck battery power as well. Stop by Plantation Tune Tech any time and we will check your battery's condition for free. You can trust us not to try and sell you a product you don't need. If your battery is fine, we'll send you on your way. If your battery is old, damaged or at risk of failing, we can also help with a replacement and we can installed ... read more

Cold weather is brutal on cars. Oils thicken and take longer to reach engine components and lubricate, metal and rubber hoses become more brittle and more subject to breakage and stress. Batteries lose power. In the old days, it was common advice to warm up your car before driving off, to give it a chance to get used to the cold. That was necessary for older fuel injection systems but in modern cars, a warm up is no longer a necessity. However, we do recommend people give their cars a three-minute warmup. This gives oils a chance to become thinner and reach all the way into the engine. Hoses become more flexible and less likely to crack. Letting the car sit and warm up gives this a chance to happen, before putting additional load on the engine, brakes, transmission and drive train through movement. Plugging into an engine heater also isn't a bad idea, if your car has one