Maumee Auto Repair

Our vehicles are not massage chairs. While we may enjoy a good vibration in an overstuffed recliner, we generally want as smooth a ride as possible in our vehicles. One way to achieve this is to keep a vehicle's wheels in balance. When a tire is mounted onto a wheel, it is usually out of balance. This means that as the wheel spins, there is a slight wobble to the path of the tire. For best handling performance and safety on the road, Maumee drivers want to minimize this wobble as much as possible. So we balance our tires. To balance a tire, your technician at Lange`s Auto Care, Inc. spins it on a machine or drum to determine where it is off-balance. He then attaches weights that counter-balance the uneven weight. Most people in Maumee are surprised at how much balancing improves the smoothness of their ride. High-quality tires generally hold their balance well. But over time, wear and tear take their toll and tires can become unbalanced. Maumee drivers can tell w ... read more

Everyone in Maumee, OH eventually replaces their tires, whether it's because they're worn out or they're just looking for something different. There are so many great tire choices in Maumee, it can be difficult to sort them out. Let's group the broad spectrum into several categories that will help in the selection process.One category is often referred to as "summer tires". Summer tires are designed to be driven on the road when temperatures are generally above 45 degrees F (7 degrees C). Their tread design is optimized for traction on dry roads around OH and they're also able to effectively displace water on rainy roads.So if you live where its summer all year round, these tires will work well for you. If you like maximum performance in warm weather, but still live where it gets cold and snowy, you'll want to change your summer tires for winter tires as the weather starts to change.There's a range of tires within the winter tire category. If you live where there's a lot of snow and i ... read more

There are so many tire choices in the Maumee area that selecting the right one can be a bit overwhelming for drivers. And even though it's kind of fun to have new tires on your vehicle, they're a significant investment for most Maumee area folks so you want do it right.Tip: talk with your friendly and knowledgeable Lange`s Auto Care, Inc. tire professional. He'll help you sort through the choices.Here are some of the issues you'll talk about: One is size – you know, all those numbers on the side of the tire. The right size is . All new vehicles are required to have stability control which, along with other important safety systems, is calibrated to work with specific tire sizes. Your Maumee tire professional can help stay within manufacturer's specifications or program a different tire size into your vehicle's computer.And you'll want to discuss how and where you drive to determine the type of tire you need: summer, winter,  all season tires ... read more

So you love your job, and your family life is great. Congratulations! You have achieved balance. But can you say the same for your wheels? Maumee drivers can tell if their tires are out of balance by vibrations at higher speeds on OH roads. If one of the front tires is out, you feel the vibration in the steering wheel. If it's a back tire, you'll feel the vibration in your seat.Tires and wheels are pretty heavy. When a tire is mounted on a wheel at Lange`s Auto Care, Inc., it is usually not perfectly balanced. So the technician will spin the tire on a machine to determine where it's too heavy. He will then place weights on the wheels in strategic locations to balance it out. When a tire is out of balance, it actually bounces down the road instead of rolling smoothly. Since the average size tire rotates at about 850 revolutions per minute at 60 mph/97 kph, it is actually slamming into the pavement 14 times a second. That's where you get your vibration.Most people in Maumee are surprise ... read more

Underinflated tires waste gas for lots of folks in the Maumee area. Think how hard it is to walk in sand – you just have to work harder because of the resistance. When your tires don't have enough air in them, their rolling resistance is dramatically increased and it simply takes more gas to get from here to there.Always check your tire pressure when you gas up at one of our local Maumee service stations. If they're low – even just a little bit – bring them up to proper pressure. There's a sticker on the inside of your driver's door that gives the manufacturer's recommended tire pressure.And don't rely on your tire pressure monitoring system to alert you to when you need more air. The TPMS system is set to warn you when pressure drops 20 percent below recommendations. That's severely underinflated and you needed more air a long time ago. And if you have a slow leak – get it fixed right away at Lange`s Auto Care, Inc..G ... read more

  Hey Maumee area drivers, are your tires worn out? What is the standard for our OH streets? How can you tell on your vehicle?While there may be legal requirements for the Maumee area, there are safety concerns that go beyond meeting minimum replacement mandates.Two-thirty-seconds of an inch is the depth of the tire tread wear indicator bars that US law has required to be molded across all tires since August 1, 1968. When tires are worn so that this bar is visible, there's just 2/32 of an inch – 1.6 millimeters – of tread left. It's that level of wear that's been called into question recently.We're referring to the tread depth on a tire, it can't move surface water out of the way and you start to hydroplane.In a safety study, a section of a test track was flooded with a thin layer of water. If you laid a dime on the track, the water would be deep enough to surround the coin, but not enough to cover it.A car and a full-sized pick-up accelerated to 70 mile ... read more

  Welcome to the Lange`s Auto Care, Inc. automotive blog. Today, let's talk about the effect of tire wear. Let's focus on stopping in wet Maumee conditions. In order for a tire to have good contact with the road, it has to move the water out of the way. If it can't move the water, the tire will actually ride on top of a thin film of water.That's called hydroplaning. If it's really bad, Maumee drivers can actually spin out of control - endangering themselves and the other drivers around them. At best, you won't stop as fast. So how does a tire move water? It has channels for water to flow through. Look at your vehicle tire and you'll see channels: channels that run around the tire and channels that flow across the tire. They're designed to direct water away from the tire so it can contact the road better.And the deeper the channel, the more water it can move. A brand new Lange`s Auto Care, Inc. tire has very deep channels and can easily move a lot of ... read more

  It seems like everywhere you go in the Maumee area you see custom wheels. Big trucks, little cars, mini-vans - it doesn't matter - are expressing themselves with custom wheels. Some OH auto owners want smaller tires and wheels - some want larger - and some want them enormous. So where do you start if you want new wheels? At Lange`s Auto Care, Inc., we suggest you start with your budget. We know, that sounds so practical. But if the look you're after goes beyond just new tires and wheels and enters into the world of suspension modifications, you need to be prepared for the additional cost.Let's start with something easy - you want to give your ride a unique look and the stock wheel size is just right for you. One of the concerns you will have is that the new wheels have the same offset as your vehicle factory wheels.Your tire and wheel professional at Lange`s Auto Care, Inc. in Maumee can help you find the right size wheel or install adapters to make your new wheels fit ... read more

Driving on bald tires is like playing roulette. Though you may be fine today, eventually your luck is going to run out.The Feds don't have any laws for tread depth, but 42 of the states, and all of Canada, do have regulations. They consider 2/32 of an inch to be the minimum legal tread depth. Two other states, including California, consider 1/32 to be the minimum and six states have no standards at all. Call us at Lange`s Auto Care, Inc.; (just call 419-897-9988) to find out what your requirements are in the Maumee, OH, area.Since 1968, U.S. law has required that a raised bar be molded across all tires. When tires are worn enough that this bar becomes visible, there's just 2/32 inch/1.6 mm of tread left. But does that older standard give Maumee vehicles enough safety?Consider this: Consumer Reports recommends tire replacement when tread reaches 4/32 inch/3.2 mm. And the recommendation is backed by some very compelling studies. Now before we go into the studies, y ... read more

What type of technology do you use? Do you prefer an 8-track tape or an iPod? When it comes to winter tires, much of Maumee driver's perception dates back to when 8-track was the best way to listen to the Bee Gees.Twenty years ago in OH, winter tires differed from highway tires only in their tread design. OH drivers called them snow tires back then, and they had big, knobby lugs that were designed to give good traction in deep snow. They had the same rubber compound as regular tires and they weren't very good on ice, packed snow or wet OH roads. They were not even very good on dry roads. They really helped in deep or loose snow, but they did a poor job the rest of the time. They were loud and rode hard. People couldn't wait to get them off in the spring.Then all-season tires started to appear in Maumee tire shops. All-season tires are really a compromise between summer and winter performance. They have acceptable hot weather ride and tread life and can get OH drivers through mild winte ... read more