The Automotive Blog

Tyres Incorrectly Infated could cost you £150 per year!

AirAlert the money saving gadget

One of the main causes of vehicle breakdowns is dangerous tyres. Both incorrect tyre pressure and tyre tread will cause your vehicle to be unsafe on the road. Not only is it unsafe but the average driver loses £150/yr from driving on under-inflated tyres.

Problems Caused – Under inflation can lead to your tyres overheating. Over inflated tyres will lead to rapid wear of your tyres. If you are caught with illegal tyre tread you will incure a hefty fine of up to £2,500 per tyre.

 What to do?

 Always keep a spare wheel and jack in your boot, and know how to change a tyre.

Check pressure level of your tyres. To find out what level your tyres should be at take a look at your vehicle handbook or speak to your main dealer.

AirAlert is a fantastic gadget that will alert the driver to a loss of pressure, low cost and with an expected life of up to 4 years this device has a payback opportunity.

aide automotive  have introduced a lockable cap for the AdBlue tanks fitted to all trucks.

Following reports of contamination and incorrect fluids being poured into the tank, customers started asking for a cap with lock, with aide automotive’s experience of dealing with anti syphon devices and caps for fuel tanks we were able to quickly source a cap that was perfect for the job. This cap also improves the quality of existing caps as some have been prone to corrosion.

aide automotive’s AdBlue caps can be supplied with single key sets or individual keys. Caps are available for DAF, Scania, Renault, Volvo, MAN, Iveco & Mercedes.

Priced at £35.95 + VAT this cap could save a transport company from downtime due to contamination or hundreds of pounds in workshop time.

Contact aide automotive on 0115 8456471

Tests ABS sensors on trucks & trailers

Vehicle Diagnostics are an essential tool in the running of an efficient business. Any workshop requires fast, accurate and effective tools to diagnose faults easily and quickly. A high percentage of brake EBS/ABS faults are around the sensor or the sensor itself.

The EBS/ABS Sensor Master clears 90% of EBS/ABS faults by testing three points of the system, the tester will work on Wabco, Knorr Bremse and Haldex systems. It’s easy to use for any technician wether that be the new apprentice or a time served fitter. Most importantly it saves workshops time and money by diagnosing the route of the problem rather than having to pay for outside diagnostic work.

aide automotive is running a special promotion on the EBS/ABS Sensor Tester for March 09 only!
£205.00 each on any quantity,

Terms and Conditions
Valid until 31 March 2009 for any quantity
VAT not included

Determined to prevent fuel theft becoming a problem for its 250-strong vehicle fleet, R Swain & Sons Ltd recently became the latest large transport company to begin fitting TP Anti Syph units to its vehicles.

Although the company says fuel theft was only an occasional problem that occurred from time to time whilst vehicles were parked-up in lay-bys and truck parks, it was nevertheless keen to stamp it out altogether. The only problem to date with this plan was that it had been unable to find a device that worked effectively and that didn’t interfere with daily operations in the process.

Commenting on the decision, Barry Miller, the company’s Workshop Manager, said: “We were starting to use a competitor product when the TP Anti Syph had claimed to have the solution we were looking for, so we decided to give them a try.

“I was immediately impressed at how easy the TP Anti Syph units were to fit and delighted the units could be quickly transferred from fuel tank to fuel tank without damaging the tank neck. But most of all, I liked the fact that they stopped fuel theft immediately and didn’t in any way interfere with fuel filling operations. We have a fast filling pump here and the units cope well with its speed. There is never any splashback, nor any spillage.

 The National Association of Police Fleet Managers Conference and Exhibition is now one of the most important emergency service transport events in Europe.

Matthew Burke Sales Director of aide automotive ltd stated ” to exhibit the miss fuelling device to all the emergency services is a ideal, also we intend of promote all our tyre pressure monitoring devices and our latest driver monitor “Driver Eye”.

aide automotive will be exhibiting the latest Miss Fuelling device for desiel vehicles, the RightFuel is a universal device for most diesel vehicles, simple to fit and 100% prevention of mis fueling the RightFuel is bound to be a hit at the NAPFM.

Misfuelling is a costly problem for lots of companies, when employees fill diesel vehicles with petrol. It’s estimated that at least 150,000 drivers put the wrong fuel in their car each year, one every three and a half minutes!

However there is a device that stops misfueling ever becoming an issue. Right Fuel is a smart little gadget that is a direct replacement for a filler cap. The device’s cap incorporates both a vacuum and pressure relief system to enable it to replace almost all automotive filler caps. The device allows a diesel nozzle to be inserted however if someone attempted to insert a petrol nozzle  it would butt up against the device, and quickly alert the user that the wrong nozzle is being used.

With the high cost and inconvenience of a diesel engine being misfuelled with petrol, this device will cut out expensive repair costs and vehicle downtime.

Right Fuel was designed and is made right here in the UK under strict quality guidelines.

Your vehicle’s battery is not very demanding, and most often only thought about when it fails. But just a small amount of care and mantainence will help insure it doesn’t let you down when you need it most.
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Lack of battery care and maintenance combined with cold weather has a way of bringing out the borderline batteries that were fine in the summer, but don’t have the power for a cold weather start. And not just winter, battery care and maintenance is a year round requirement. You want to catch a bad battery before it lets you down, usually on one of the coldest days of the year.

Testing and maintaining a battery is fairly simple and only requires a few basic tools.

If you have a car battery, it is highly recommended that you use a good quality Midtronics tester. There are quite a few types of Midtronics testers. The latest MDX with built in printer are much easier to read and I don’t have to stand there trying techncial information.

Analog (needle type) voltmeters are not accurate enough to measure the millivolt differences of a battery’s State-of-Charge or measure the output of the charging system. A battery load tester is optional.

Midtronics tester of the latest up to date technology for testing car batteries or truck 24 volt batteries.

Also charging a battery is highly recomended,  CTek chargers are an ideal solution to keep a battery recharged.

An out-of-control lorry which smashed into an office and killed two women could have caused a “massacre”, a coroner said. Two women died when the 35-tonne truck crashed through the front of an estate agent’s office in High Wycombe on 14 June 2002. Buckinghamshire coroner Richard Hulett said it had been a lottery which of the many people out in the town centre would be hit when the lorry’s brakes failed at the top of a hill. The driver and his employers DE Transport have been summoned before Wycombe magistrates for failing to maintain the brakes and exceeding the weight limit on a vehicle.

The driver’s statement included that he told police the vehicle had had brake problems four to six weeks previously, but these had been fixed by a garage.

Sales Director Matthew Burke states “With BrakeCheck ( a modern day decelerometer) you have a hard copy print out that is time and date stamped to prove brakes are checked and are to the required braking efficiency, reviewing the above article its always easy to speak with hindsight but this is a warning for today’s vehicle operators to do their up most to check and report on BRAKES”.

Poorly educated and trained company car drivers are causing thousands of breakdowns a year because they are failing to carry out basic vehicle maintenance and are not fully briefed on the vehicle they are driving.

Company drivers are putting petrol into diesel cars, which can cost up to £6,000 to repair, and plugging so many electronic gadgets into their cars that their vehicles’ batteries run flat.

Such common mistakes, which according to the RAC mean fleet vehicles are off the road for 11,757 days annually, could be avoided if drivers conducted simple maintenance checks and undertook driver training.

The RAC estimates that over 40,000 fleet breakdown call outs could be avoided this way.
The company’s analysis of fleet vehicle breakdowns revealed that 17 out of the top 20 reasons for breakdowns are beacuse drivers fail to carry out simple actions.

The top call out is for punctures, although this has more to do with health and safety policies than poor driver education, as Debbie Floyd, fleet manager for Bauer, explained.

“The days of a young female sales rep trying to change a flat tyre at the side of the road are over,” she said.

“It is part of our driver health and safety policy that a breakdown service must be called to repair a puncture.”

The most common avoidable call out is for flat batteries.

“Fleet vehicles have become like mobile offices with more and more current-hungry gadgets, such as mobile phones, PCs and navigation systems, and drivers seem to think their cars are bottomless pits of energy,” said Elvin Ravenscroft, tactical development manager for RAC.

“Modern batteries are designed for a high discharge of power when starting the car, but not for a constant, steady power flow as in the case of lights or charging mobile equipment.”

Fleet drivers are continuing to mis-fuel their cars in massive numbers.

Diesel contamination now makes up almost a quarter of the top 20 driver-induced faults.

“If a vehicle is misfuelled, the car should not be unlocked and the key should not be put in the ignition.

“Under no circumstances should the engine be started, since it could result in a repair cost of around £200 to have the fuel tank drained and between £3,000 and £6,000 to repair an engine,” said Mr Ravenscroft.

As well as education regarding their vehicles, fleet managers must continue to ensure their drivers improve their road skills.

RAC data revealed that fleet drivers are twice as likely to be involved in a collision as an average motorist.

“If fleet drivers adhered to road rules, took adequate breaks to avoid tiredness or considered undergoing training to improve driving skills, the number of fleet call outs to a collision could be reduced by as much as 50%,” said Mr Ravenscroft.

The Launch X431 scanner is one of the Most Comprehensive Diagnostic tool in the automotive diagnostic market, providing the best software updates very close to dealer OEM quality, diagnostics for the garage workshop in one affordable unit.

Best of all, the X-431’s vehicle coverage continues to grow, with simple internet-ready updates accessible to you at the click of a button. Unlike other tools and diagnostic equipment, the X-431 is an investment that actually increases in value as time goes by. The LAUNCH X431 internet database features newly added diagnostic interfaces and car models on an almost weekly basis- making this rapidly expanding technology an essential investment for the professional auto technician.

More than just reading & clearing fault codes – goes far beyond Accesses
The complete vehicle, including: drive, chassis, body, and the Data bus networking communication modules
Live data and graphing performs actuations and adaptations, key programming, body module configurations
Technical Support and Training

Matthew Burke Sales Director of aide automotive ltd states “A diagnostic tool is a must for the modern day garage, without a diagnostic tool repairs will be outsourced more and more leaving your fitters and garage redundant, diagnostic is the future of repairing and once trained is not difficult to use and understand. What was once considered a luxury tool is now a necessity to run a productive business.”