Car Repair

At Andrew's Diesel, Heavy Equipment, Auto & Tire in Spanish Fort, we know how important climate control is to your driving experience. Not only does a fully functional heat and AC system keep you warm in the winter, and cool in the summer, it is vital to defrosting windows and keeping the air in your car circulating.

Whether you drive a BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Porsche (some exclusions apply), Subaru, or other performance automobiles, your car has a cooling system. With winter right around the corner, at Andrew's Diesel, Heavy Equipment, Auto & Tire we want to make sure your cooling system is ready for the cold.

Since the first automobile, vehicle electronics have become increasingly more complex with every passing era. In the modern-day, your car, truck, or SUV likely depends on an array of modules, sensors, and components that control every aspect of how your vehicle runs and drives. Here’s what you need to know about your vehicle’s electronics systems, from Andrew's Diesel, Heavy Equipment, Auto & Tire in Spanish Fort.

If you’re ever in a situation where you must remove the battery from your vehicle, it’s important to know what you’re doing. It seems pretty straight forward, and it is. However, there are some important things to remember when disconnecting the battery in your car, truck, or SUV. Here are some tips on disconnecting a car battery, from Andrew's Diesel, Heavy Equipment, Auto & Tire in Spanish Fort, AL.

Spark plugs have been around since the beginning, and play as important a role now as they did a hundred years ago. It’s a good idea to replace them as a set at regular intervals, but sometimes one will go bad sooner than the rest for one reason or another. How do you know if you have a bad spark plug? Here are some indicators, from Andrew's Diesel, Heavy Equipment, Auto & Tire in Spanish Fort, AL.

If you’ve owned a vehicle long, particularly one with a few miles on it, you have probably encountered a peculiar smell that grabbed your attention. Scents that you encounter while driving (emanating from your vehicle, not the horse farm down the road) are indicators of your vehicle's health and often the first warning that something may be wrong. Andrew's Diesel, Heavy Equipment, Auto & Tire in Spanish Fort has assembled this list to prepare for you for the next time you smell something odd, so you’ll know what’s going on next time you notice a funny smell.

When you are having trouble with your car or truck starting and you open the hood up to take a peek to see this....you'll see what an overly corroded battery looks like. This happens naturally over time on vehicle battery terminals.  If you are like 99% of normal Spanish Fort drivers, you don't check your oil or your battery so you don't keep an eye on the amount of corrosion that's building up on your car or truck battery.  Here at Andrew's Diesel, Heavy Equipment, Auto & Tire, we do and there are solvents that we can use here in the shop during a battery maintenance service that will help slow the corrosion process but nothing that can prevent it 100%. Way before it gets to this point, we will be suggesting you consider replacing the battery. 

Manual transmissions are generally more reliable than automatic transmissions. They don’t have as many parts, aren’t as complex, and can take a lot more abuse. However, if an issue is allowed to persist, more and more damage to surrounding components on your manual transmission will occur. Andrew's Diesel, Heavy Equipment, Auto & Tire in Spanish Fort, AL can help you take care of your car as soon as you notice a problem.

If your car, truck or SUV is experiencing major engine issues, the technicians at Andrew's Diesel, Heavy Equipment, Auto & Tire in Spanish Fort, AL have you covered. You hear the engine knocking when it decides to start? Is there smoke pouring from your truck’s exhaust pipe? Whether you’re burning oil, your engine is on it’s last leg or has simply given up altogether, we can help. And if you’re not sure what you need, we can help with that too.

When driving around town, your vehicle's engine needs clean air to burn the fuel – and it needs a lot. In fact, a typical vehicle needs about 216,000 gallons of air for every tank of gas. All that air passes through a filter that catches the dust and dirt. Eventually, the filter gets completely full, and because the filter can only hold so much, dirt starts getting through. At Andrew's Diesel, Heavy Equipment, Auto & Tire in Spanish Fort, we want to help you get the best air quality in your vehicle, but first, we want to explain the process of where this dirty air is going. 

At some point or another, it’ll happen to you. You leave your headlights on, your battery finally fails, or for some other reason, you don’t have enough juice to start your car. Don’t call a tow truck just yet, though...Andrew's Diesel, Heavy Equipment, Auto & Tire in Spanish Fort has the info you need to properly jump start your car.

If you drive a vehicle with more than a few miles on it, there’s a good chance you’ve noticed an occasional drip underneath it that leaves spots wherever you park. Identifying what is leaking from your car will help you determine whether or not it’s a cause for concern, and what to do about it.

There are seven liquids a car can possibly drip: oil, gas, brake fluid, transmission fluid, gear oil, water, and coolant. How do you tell the difference? This article aims to help your know-how.

Repairs are costly and we all want to avoid them including our team here at Andrew's Diesel, Heavy Equipment, Auto & Tire!  It's our job and we take it seriously.  Here, it is all about keeping your car or truck serviced and looking for problems "before" they happen to avoid those high repair costs and ensuring you avoid any breakdowns when it's hot outside or cold outside as either is a problem for our Spanish Fort drivers!  Nobody can forsee a flat tire or blowout due to running over a nail, but we can avoid some of the regular issues we see all the time such as....

If you drive performance or luxury vehicle (Subaru, BMW, Mercedes, Porsche, Land Rover, etc.) you’re aware that you have a complex and precision-engineered machine. When things start to go wrong, sometimes they go wrong in a hurry. Here are some things to watch out for, from Andrew's Diesel, Heavy Equipment, Auto & Tire in Spanish Fort, AL.

At Andrew's Diesel, Heavy Equipment, Auto & Tire in Spanish Fort, we know how annoying a dead battery can be. Here’s some information on the subject, that will hopefully help you understand your battery issues a little better.

Do you have a noisy vehicle? If so, you may need a new muffler or exhaust system from our team here at Andrew's Diesel, Heavy Equipment, Auto & Tire in Spanish Fort. The purpose of your exhaust system is not only to reduce the noise but also to redirect fumes away from your vehicle. Redirecting these fumes protects passengers in the car from toxins created by burning fuel.

Carbon monoxide is a colorless, odorless chemical that can escape from an unsecured exhaust system, and if inhaled can pose very serious health hazards. If you experience an unusually loud sound coming from your vehicle, it is vital to get your exhaust system checked immediately!

Once your transmission has been replaced and you’re shifting smoothly once more, you’ll probably want to keep it running smoothly. Here are some tips from Andrew's Diesel, Heavy Equipment, Auto & Tire in Spanish Fort, AL to help keep you reliably on the road.

Just because manual transmissions aren’t as common these days as they used to be, there are still many out there, and at Andrew's Diesel, Heavy Equipment, Auto & Tire in Spanish Fort, AL, our certified technicians know how to keep them running at their best.

At Andrew's Diesel, Heavy Equipment, Auto & Tire in Spanish Fort, AL, we have seen our fair share of preventable engine failures. Frequently, engine disaster could have been avoided if the driver had known beforehand what the warning lights or gauges on the dashboard indicated. While some dash lights are fairly benign, others indicate imminent trouble. This guide from Andrew's Diesel, Heavy Equipment, Auto & Tire in Spanish Fort, AL will prepare you for the next time your vehicle shows you a warning you shouldn’t ignore.

Don’t you hate it when potholes sneak up on you? There is a lot of money being spent on vehicle damage due to potholes. Do you know what parts of your car could receive the most damage.