We Put You in "The Driver's Seat" When it Comes to Auto Service Knowledge!

How do you know what condition your brakes are in?  Do you wait until you hear them squealing a bit as you stop? Do you wait for a warning light to come on?  Do you wait until the brake pedal feels low? Do you take your car in for preventive maintenance inspections every six months or every 5,000 miles?  Well, if you didn't answer yes to that last question, you may be placing yourself and other riders in you car at risk.

Our cars can provide us with a lot of information about the condition of the brakes. There are systems in place to warn us about:

• The parking brake being left on.
• The brake pads wearing out.
• A hydraulics failure or brake fluid leak.
• A computer controlled anti-lock brake system failure.

What is the Anti-Lock Braking System?
The anti-lock brake system (ABS) is a safety system that allows the wheels on a motor vehicle to maintain tractive contact / friction with the road surface no matter how hard the driver pushes the brake pedal. The ABS does this by preventing the wheels from locking up (stopping rotation). This is important because when the wheels on your car lock up, you can go into an uncontrollable skid.  As such, the ABS generally offers improved vehicle control and decreases stopping distances on both dry and slippery surfaces by allowing drivers to brake and steer at the same time thereby avoiding an accident.  The video below provides a good demonstration of the concept.

More than twenty-five years ago Audi car sales took a nose dive after Audi was wrongfully accused of making cars that accelerated on their own. US sales dropped from 75,000 to 15,000. (See note 1.)  

Now Audi is riding high and is on pace to sell over 117,500 cars in the U.S. this year and over a million cars a year worldwide.

Audi has gone back to its roots in car racing and has done extremely well. They are giving BMW, who sells twice as many cars as Audi, a run for the money! 

Servicing and repairing an Audi is much like any other European vehicle.  They require a little more maintenance, and like any sports sedan, they require replacing the tires and brakes more often.  

In fact, the brakes and tires installed on an Audi are de

signed to give maximum performance rather than longevity.