Ft. Collins Auto Repair

From time to time we see vehicles at the side of the road resting on the steering and suspension with a wheel missing. It looks terrible, but in most cases it is not as bad as it looks. Wheels can come off for a number of reasons, but the most common is that the lug nuts holding the wheel in place are not properly tightened. Those lug nuts have a specified tightness, called a torque specification, to which they are to be tightened. Most of us use a special wrench (torque wrench) which measures how tight the nut has been placed to hold the wheel. Some people use what is known as a torque stick that fits on the end of a wrench and accomplishes the same thing. Either way, it is important that whenever a wheel is removed for any reason, it should be torqued down rather than being just randomly having the lug nuts wrenched on. There are a number of reasons a car or truck should have the lug nuts torqued. Most important, is safety. If the nuts are not tight enough, they can come unscrewed an ... read more

We used to charge a fee on nearly every invoice of 5% with a max of $10. Then it was brought to my attention that this is not always necessary or appropriate, and after I thought about it, YEAH, it’s not! I decided that charging some sort of random indescriminate fee was not right and we dropped it out completely several years ago. My cost for uniforms, towels, tp, water, and the like are not billed as “supplies&rdquo

Every fall we offer a package that includes an oil change and inspection to find out if there are any areas of your vehicle that need attention. The cooling system (engine cooling, that is) takes precedence for most of us here in Colorado. We get some pretty cold temps here on the front range, though not as bad as the folks back east imagine. But many of us also ski and ride in the mountains every winter and we need to know that we will not have a frozen engine block as a result. In addition to checking the condition of the antifreeze in the car or truck, we check for the condition of the hoses and belts to be sure they do not fail. We do that by pressurizing the cooling system and looking for leaks in the hoses, radiator, heater core or connections. We look over the belts to see if cracking or separation has occurred and will lead to failure. Our inspection also includes steering and suspension, starting and charging systems, brakes, battery, tires and all fluids. So, if you don&rsquo ... read more

Not everyone likes Fords and most of us have a favorite brand in the automotive market which we favor. Some of us like me, have a lot of different brands in the family. At All Tech, we have two Ford factory trained mechanics on staff with forty years of experience between them working on Fords. You can only imagine what that knowledge brings to the game when they confront a Ford that has a problem. We also own the Ford VCM Factory Diagnostic Tool that enables us to connect to the vehicle and get information from its computer. We can read codes, scan systems, activate systems and even reprogram the computers and key fobs. With a direct connection to Ford and its factory information to complement the tool, we can accomplish anything we need to repair your truck or car. One of our Ford mechanics is also trained in diesel repair and knows them as well as the gas cars. One of his specialties is working on the 6.0 liter engines that can be troublesome for many shops. So, if you own a Ford, L ... read more

At All Tech, we emphasize quality. Not just talk about the necessity to provide quality, but to do something about it. There are several ways in which quality plays a role in car and truck repair. To illustrate, here is an example of a car recently brought to us. The Acura was experiencing a strange braking problem in that it would sometimes “grab” rather than slow smoothly, and at other times the pedal was felt to be “soft and mushy”. What we found is that someone, at a quick lube franchise we believe, had added motor oil to the brake master cylinder. This resulted in the contamination of the brake fluid, which although it is an oil, is a hydraulic oil and not a lubricating oil. I have only seen this happen a couple of times in the past 20 years, but it is a catastrophe when it occurs