vastremotors.com BLOG

Welcome to the Vastre Motor Services Blog. Here we will post some of our experiences and thoughts on motor repairs, servicing, and anything else related to motoring generally.

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Vastre Motor Services are proud to announce that they have been chosen to be the first garage in Newtown to join the nationally recognised Good Garage Scheme. Details of the scheme can be seen at www.goodgaragescheme.com – but in a nutshell it means as an independent garage we work to a code of practice ensuring a high quality of service & repair.

With autumn here and winter on the horizon Newtown has joined a major national scheme which is helping ensure motorists’ vehicles are in tip top condition to handle harsher conditions on the road. The Good Garage Scheme has developed a comprehensive 20-point ‘winter’ check to ensure their customers’ cars run as smoothly as possible during the colder months.

The essential winter motoring package includes checking:

• The condition and levels of antifreeze.
• Engine oil.
• Brakes and tyres.
• Windscreens.
• Wipers and lights.

The Good Garage Scheme was launched in 2006 to show that the motor trade does offer value for money and can be trusted.  Its members adhere to a strict Code of Conduct and offer a 50-point Industry Standard Service.  This, coupled with a customer feedback system, and a five-star rating system, means that customers have peace of mind when choosing an independent garage.

Have you got a Vauxhall Corsa C?  Do you find it more difficult to steer in one direction than the other?  This is a common fault and many people either don’t notice it until it gets really bad, or they just put up with it.

It is almost always caused by a misaligned sensor on the steering column and can be fixed in around an hour without any replacement parts. Unlike most cars which use hydraulic fluid to drive the steering rack, the Corsa has an electric motor attached to the steering column inside the car. A torque sensor is also fitted to the steering column to detect how much force is being applied to the wheel – in turn this applies power to the electric motor to assist the turn.  Over time this sensor “drifts” out of alignment causing more force to be applied in one direction than the other.

If you think your Corsa has this problem give us a call on 01686 888101  and arrange for us to take a look. If we confirm that it is a misaligned sensor it takes about an hour to fix – £35 plus VAT.

Everybody knows that car manufacturers recommend the engine be serviced at regular intervals to keep it running smoothly. But many people ignore this or “stretch” the time between services to save money – something which can turn out to cost more in the end.

Broken belt

This image shows the two broken ends of a cambelt which broke while the car was travelling at around 50mph. The cambelts job is to keep the inlet and exhaust valves synchronised with the crankshaft and pistons.  If the belt breaks then the valves will be open when the piston rises and on most engines the two will hit, at best bending the valves, at worst breaking either the valves or pistons.

Bent valves

The picture on the right shows the inside of a cylinder head after a timing belt failure. The head is upside down and shows a closeup of the valves of one cylinder. The end of the spark plug is in the centre and you can see clearly that the larger valve (the inlet) has been bent and is permanently open. The exhaust valve is also bent and open although to a lesser extent.

Repairing this sort of damage is possible but very expensive as the top of the engine needs to be stripped down and all the damaged parts replaced.

So make sure you get your vehicle serviced regularly at the recommended service interval. If you are not sure what that interval is give us a call on 01686 888101 and we can let you know.

As part of our advertising campaign on our local station – Radio Maldwyn, we offered a competition prize of a £100 service voucher. A number of phone-in competitions are run throughout the week and the winner of each one is entered into a draw at the end of the week. The lucky winner of our voucher was Theresa Paige from Newtown who correctly answered one of Adrian Lawley’s “Two Way Connection” competitions earlier in the week.

Theresa is pictured here with Will and her Citroen Xsara which had a full service without paying a penny!

We may be offering more prizes in future so keep an ear out on Radio Maldwyn – you never know, next time it might be you!

Showing off the new banner

We will be advertising with a trackside banner at the Caersws Trotting races on Saturday 11th July. This is always a popular event and has been held annually since 1978 – attracting around 3000 visitors each year. The meeting is to be televised and shown on S4C (Channel 4 in Wales) on Saturday evening. We will both be at the event along with a few guests to enjoy the atmosphere and maybe have a small flutter!

A small collection of the broken springs

One thing we have noticed over our first few months of trading is how many vehicles are coming in to us with broken springs. Some of them are obvious and make the car undriveable, but some have only a small piece broken from the end of the spring and the driver was not even aware of the problem.

Two important things – first a broken spring is a weakened spring and it may break again or slip off its mount. If that happens at speed it can obviously be very dangerous. And second – because of that – it will fail an MOT. The worst example we had was a Vauxhall Astra which came in for a regular service and had 3 broken springs – both of the rears and one on the front.

A close up of the jagged broken end of a spring

Opinion varies on the cause of so many spring failures. Is it bad components (ie weak springs) or worsening road surfaces combined with the dreaded speed bumps!  Maybe it is a bit of both.

So if you think you may have a broken spring – or you just want to get them checked – come along for a free check and we will give the rest of the vehicle a quick safety check as well.