Brooklyn Park Auto Repair

Welcome to our new blog! This month, we’re talking about what fluid exchanges, or flushes, can do for the life of your vehicle. Do you want your car to last a lifetime? Replacing fluids is the key to having a reliable car to go to work, school, vacation, or other activities. Why walk when we have a perfectly sustainable car?  Here are four things fluid exchanges can do for your car: Exchanges prolong the life of your car - Fluids are a secret to longevity for your vehicle. If you would like to extend your car’s life, you must focus on the fluids. Changing your fluids is highly recommended. The reality is how many miles you have accumulated and the years will add up, and if the fluids are not functional, this will cause significant damage to your car. Add a regular schedule to have your fluid changes and a car’s maintenance routine, and you will absolutely improve your car’s life.  They prevent damage to systems - A car’s fluid is vital to an au ... read more

Welcome to March! With spring on the way, you’re likely thinking of what you can do to make a fresh start in your life. Spring means renewal, but it also means accepting that the season of an old favorite is gone and past. If your car is on the cusp of turning over the 100,000 miles mark on the speedometer, it might be time to start putting some serious thought into how you can preserve your car and keep it going for years to come. At AutoPro, we don’t get asked this enough, but we do have some ideas about how to keep your car going for the years to come: Preventative Maintenance - This is the biggest issue to preserving a car. With each service you order from us, we inspect your vehicle and report our findings to give you a long-term diagnosis of your vehicle’s health. Fluid Replacement - Your car builds up lots of invaders in its systems that can damage it down the road. You can tackle this problem by ordering a flush and getting ... read more

When you’re planning to go on a long road trip, you now have the option of abandoning terrestrial radio for satellite radio stations to keep music neutral for the party. But that’s not the only option available. You can download Spotify lists and other streaming services to a device for playback. And in many cases, you can load MP3 files directly into the onboard memory of the entertainment system via USB thumb drives.  The space available for your playlist can be a blessing or a curse when planning music for a long playlist. Remember that your local library has a rich vault of music CDs you can check out to help build your playlist. If this is the very first time you're hearing of a particular band, remember that you can research them on YouTube to discover what the most relevant tracks are. Here are some tips for making your music selection something everyone can enjoy: Pick crowd-pleasers. You might be a real superfan of an obscure Springsteen track, but the c ... read more

At last, 2021 is here and 2020 is behind us! We hope that this coming year has better things in store for us all.  If you’ve not made any New Year’s Resolutions this year, we have six resolutions to follow that will help you protect your automobile on the road this year: Be attentive. Keep your focus on traffic and not what’s going on with your phone, or your kids. If you need to focus on these things, pull off the road and put on your emergency blinkers to deal with them, rather than try to juggle driving responsibilities with distractions. Be more patient. Reacting with anger to traffic is how many accidents begin. Give way, and accept that others may not treat you fairly on the road. Your pride means nothing if you wreck your car and can’t get where you were going, after all.  Take a Defensive Driving class. If you’ve never taken one, or if it’s been years, taking a Defensive Driving course can help you rewire your brain to be more a ... read more

The Year That Never Ended is at last coming to an end! As we say goodbye to a fraught 2020, we’re challenged with looking forward to 2021 and remaining positive, even with some bad news on the horizon. The bad news is, we’re on the edge of a recession. Between trade wars and the pandemic shutting down a lot of business and making people jobless/homeless, we’re facing an uncertain 2021. Until a COVID19 vaccine reaches all quarters, we’re still living in fear for our families and livelihoods every time we step outside our own door. No one should spend their holidays worrying about the year ahead, to buy holiday gifts with a sense of dread and worry about how it will all be paid for in the coming year. We should be happy, plucky, cocky, and strong now. It isn’t fair to get through a year as hard as 2020 and then to have the wind taken out of our sails.  So, here’s a proposition: let’s not do that. Let’s go into 2021 as we did in ... read more

When’s the last time you said “thank you” to your car? Thanksgiving is approaching and soon, most of us will be sitting around a table to a glorious feast, talking about the many things that we’re grateful for. In most cases, we’ll talk about the essential workers, like paramedics, police officers, the fire department, nurses, doctors, delivery drivers, and of course, mechanics. We’ll talk about the family and friends to survive the COVID-19 pandemic and in some cases, we’ll sadly remember the ones who didn’t. At AutoPro, we’re grateful for our customers. We were able to help each other through what has turned out to be a very bleak year. Many shops have closed down, unable to sustain themselves through the pandemic, but thanks to our regulars and their caring, we managed to make it through. But how often did you notice in the past summer how good it was to have a working automobile? How great it felt to take off your mask the mo ... read more

Photo by Josh Hild on Unsplash Fall and winter can be particularly difficult on your vehicles, especially with the weather we get here in Minnesota! That being said, it’s important to know when to get your car ready for the coming winter months, and that time is here. Keep reading to learn how to get your vehicle prepped and primed for the coming cold weather this year by going over these five important areas!   Tires:  Regardless of whether it snows or not in your location, you should make sure your tires have proper tread, tire pressure, and aren’t damaged or unevenly worn. Use the penny test to check your tire tread depth, and inspect around your tires for cracks, or if there are chunks and gouges in the wa ... read more

Going back to school is stressful enough, but school during COVID-19 takes the cake. Many schools will likely be distance-learning instead of going back to classrooms. Depending on the location and status of your community, it’s likely that distance learning will become the norm for the foreseeable future. Whatever happens, here are some helpful tips for back to school safety in 2020! 1.       Discover your school’s COVID-19 plan. You’ve likely already heard from your children’s schools about coming back to school. Depending on each individual families’ needs, sending your children back to school physically may not be a viable option. You and your family will have to decided for yourselves which risks you’re willing to take should school reopen. In the meantime, find out how all this online school is supposed to happen, and prepare for extended online learning! 2.       Teach your kids proper hygiene and social ... read more

No matter your skill level, as a car owner, you should get comfortable making sure you can perform some simple car-care practices. Some things you may want to leave to the pros, but there is a bunch of basic vehicle maintenance that you can do easily on your own too!   Firstly, you should always get acquainted with your owner’s manual. Every car has one, and it's usually a thick little booklet that’s stored in your glovebox. If you can’t find it, don’t worry; you can always find an online version! Give it a read, and then turn to your maintenance schedule section. This will tell you what kinds of maintenance is needed and when.    Next, you’ll want to regularly check and change your car’s oil and oil filter. Think of your engine as your vehicle’s heart and its oil as its blood. It lubricates the rest of the engine, allowing your engines various parts to work together without grinding and causing damage over time. Old engine o ... read more

Taking care of your car’s fluids is one of the most important things you can do as a car owner. Over time, innovations in the automotive industry have added new types of fluids to maintain, meaning more maintenance overall. If you want to know how to keep up on your car’s fluids, make sure you keep reading to understand how to take care of your vehicle’s fluids. All cars need oil, which is perhaps one of the most common types of fluids you should check. Oil lubricates different areas of your engine to keep them running smoothly and avoid overheating. Make sure your engine is cold, and then check your oil levels. Top it off with your recommended oil type from your car manual, and that’s it! Radiator fluid is also easy to check, and it ensures that your car doesn’t overheat while out and about. Always check your radiator fluid after driving, but not while hot or cold. Don’t forget about your transmission or brake fluids! Transmission fluid allows you ... read more