Tag: maintenance

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Toyota of Abilene Maintenance Tips

How to Jump Start a Car: A Step-by-Step Guide to Reviving Your Dead Battery 

Close-up hands of a car mechanic holding the battery jumper wire. He uses battery jumper cables to charge a dead battery.

If your car battery has died, you’re not alone. It’s a common issue that can happen to anyone. Luckily, jump-starting a car is a simple process that can save you from having to call a tow truck or mechanic. In this blog, we’ll guide you through the steps to jump-start your car safely and easily. 

Step 1: Check Your Battery 

Before you begin, inspect your battery to ensure it is properly attached and free of corrosion or leaks. These issues can cause the battery to fail, so be sure to address them before attempting to jump-start your car. 

Step 2: Gather Tools 

You’ll need a few items to jump-start your car, including a set of jumper cables and a working car with a charged battery. Jumper cables are typically black and red with clamps on both ends and can be found at your local auto parts store or here at Toyota of Abilene. Park the working car close enough to your vehicle so that you can safely attach the jumper cables to both batteries with ease. 

Step 3: Attach Cables 

Start by ensuring both cars are turned off before attaching the jumper cables. Locate the positive and negative battery terminals on each car, terminals are usually color-coded and labeled with a plus (+) or minus (-) sign. 

Attach one end of the positive (+) cable (usually red) to the dead battery’s positive terminal. Do the same for the support car’s positive terminal. Take one end of the negative (-) cable (usually black) and attach it to the good battery’s negative terminal. Finally, attach the other end of the negative cable to the dead car’s negative battery terminal or an unpainted piece of metal on the car. 

Step 4: Start the Working Car and Wait 

With both vehicles properly connected, start up the working car and let it run for 15 to 20 minutes. As it runs, the charging system will begin to charge the dead battery on your vehicle.  

Step 5: Try Starting Your Car 

After fifteen to twenty minutes, attempt to start your own car. If it starts up, congratulations – you’ve successfully jump-started your vehicle! Next, disconnect the cables in the opposite order you connected them, taking care not to touch the metal parts of the cables together as you remove them. Remove the negative (-) cable from your car’s battery, then the negative cable from the support car’s battery. Do the same for the positive (+) cable on each vehicle.  

Once you disconnect the jumper cables, you’re done! Wasn’t that easy? 

Step 6: If Your Car Doesn’t Start 

If your car still won’t start, try repeating the process. If it still doesn’t work, you may need to get a new battery or have your car inspected by a mechanic here at Toyota of Abilene. 

Final Thoughts 

Jumpstarting your car is easy and a practical skill that every driver should know — but prevention is always better than cure. Ensure that you turn off all lights and electronics in your car when the engine is not running. This will help prevent your battery from draining. Regularly maintaining your battery by cleaning it and checking for leaks or corrosion will also help prolong its lifespan. 

With the right tools and knowledge, knowing how to jump start a vehicle can put you back on the road quickly and avoid a costly tow truck call. Remember to always handle jumper cables with caution, as they contain electricity that can be dangerous if not used correctly. Follow these steps, and you’ll be more than ready to jump-start your car the next time your battery dies on you. 

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Texas Toyota

4 Tips to Keep Your Car Looking Great

Keep your car clean with these 4 tips

Whether you’re a car enthusiast or simply a daily driver, keeping your car clean is always a must. While it may seem like a daunting task to keep your car clean, it truly isn’t, especially with our Toyota of Abilene helpful car cleaning tips.

As with any chore, the more you keep up with cleaning your car, the easier it is to maintain. That is why we recommend regularly cleaning out your car, vacuuming it and keeping it free of trash and debris.

When it comes to keeping the exterior of your car looking great, regular washes and waxes will go a long way. Maintaining your car’s paint is a great way to ensure your vehicle won’t have rust or peeling problems. The best part is that it keeps your car looking great too.

With this list of helpful tips, you’ll have all the tools and knowledge you need to keep your car looking just as great as it did the day you bought it.

Clear it Out

The first step to cleaning your car like the pros is pretty simple — clear it out! Trash, debris, last week’s hamburger wrapper, you’ll want to get rid of it all. Clearing out the clutter from the interior of your car instantly makes it look better and a lot less “lived in”. Plus, if you had enough stuff in there, you could consider it as fuel savings to clean it all out.

Not only is interior clutter unsightly, but it can also be dangerous. If you’re ever in an accident, every item you have on the interior will be tossed around becoming a hazard to you. Plus, who wants to be coated in a two-day-old soda after getting in an accident?

Cleaning out the interior of your car is the easiest step, all you need are some trash bags and you’ll be clutter-free in no time. Once you’ve cleaned out the interior of your car, you can move on to our next step detailed below.

Scrub it Out

Just like the carpet and flooring in our homes, the floor mats in our cars can get pretty dirty. That’s why it’s important for you to pull them out of the car and give them a good scrubbing. Getting your floor mats nice and clean doesn’t just look good, it also will help cut down on airborne bacteria and irritants too.

Before you get to scrubbing, you may also want to give your floor mats thorough vacuuming. This will get the dirt and debris that has found its way into your car and been compacted down. Once you’re done vacuuming you can get to scrubbing.

You’ll want a good brush with semi-firm bristles to attack carpet floor mats, and a good cleaning agent as well. If you have rubber or “all-weather” floor mats, you can skip the vacuum step and just give them a good spray down with your chosen cleaning agent.

Vacuum it Out

If you have been following our steps thus far, you should have your vacuum out still, so why not tackle the rest of the interior with it? Thoroughly vacuum all carpeted surfaces in your car, including the passenger and rear-seat floorboards, especially if they see high traffic.

While you have the vacuum out, it’s probably a good idea to run it over any non-carpeted surfaces that accumulate dust and debris like the dashboard. You can even hit the vents as dust accumulates there and can cause allergies or irritation.

A solid vacuum job should leave your car’s interior looking fresh and smelling even better — so why not take the time and do your car a favor?

Wipe it Out

A final step to cleaning your car like a pro is wiping it out. Pick up some interior cleaning and detailing wipes and get to work! We recommend starting from the driver’s seat, hitting all the instrumentation and surfaces you touch most.

From there, we say no amount of attention to detail is too much. Dig into those cracks and crevices, don’t be afraid to really get in there. You can use things like Q-Tips to get into tight spaces like between the air vents or radio controls. Work your way throughout the front first, then make a move to the back of the car — don’t forget the cupholders!

Get to Cleaning

Now that you have read our list of tips to keep your car clean like the pros, it’s time to grab your cleaning supplies and get to work. Whether you’re going for full interior and exterior detail or keeping it simple with a wash and wax, this list of tips is sure to get you started on the right path.

If you’re not feeling the whole DIY car detailing process, that’s okay too, we can always help you out at our reconditioning department. All you have to do is book an appointment online or by calling 325-550-2122 — stopping by works too.

Categories
Service Center

What is Synthetic Oil and How Often Should I Change It?

Does your car, truck or SUV need an oil change? If so, have it performed here at Toyota of Abilene located in Abilene, TX today!
Does your car, truck or SUV need an oil change? If so, have it performed here at Toyota of Abilene located in Abilene, TX today!

Some may say that the engine is the most important part of your vehicle, but the truth is, it isn’t the engine itself, but what runs through it that is the most important part of your vehicle. Engine oil is the most important part of your vehicle, as it protects vital components of your engine that keep your car running right. Through short trips, weekend joy rides, and long cruises, the oil in your engine heats up and cools off multiple times, and must not degrade during this process as that could cause engine wear and tear, and eventual failure.

To keep engine oil from degrading quickly, oil manufacturers turned to synthetic oil blends which degrade at a slower rate and even provide improved protection to the engine. Synthetic oil is far more refined than traditional oil, resulting in less engine friction, reduced sludge buildup, and even better engine performance.

If you’re located in Abilene or the surrounding areas and wondering when you should change your oil, you’ll want to read the rest of this blog!

What is Synthetic Oil?

Synthetic oil is an artificial lubricant that was designed to reduce friction and wear of internal combustion engines, as well as replace traditional motor oil. Developed from chemically modified petroleum instead of crude oil, synthetic oil provides better performance by reducing friction and wear of your engine, far better than a traditional motor oil can. Synthetic oil tends to degrade at a slower rate than traditional motor oil, making it an attractive choice to auto manufacturers attempting to keep their vehicle maintenance costs low.

One of the best benefits of synthetic oil that often goes overlooked is it’s reduced impact on the environment. With synthetic oil usage on the rise, the world’s reliance on crude oil has decreased, thus reducing the environmental impact that oil has. If you want to reduce your vehicle maintenance costs, wear and tear, and environmental impact, using synthetic oil in your car is the way to go!

Why Should I Use Synthetic Oil?

The use of synthetic oil isn’t just about reducing your environmental impact or stopping the use of crude oil throughout the world, its best trick is increasing the performance of your engine! Synthetic oil is great to use in your engine, as it can withstand a wider range of temperatures, is more stable, and causes less engine sludge. Using synthetic oil also means your internal engine parts will stay better lubricated, meaning less wear and tear on your engine and better performance too.

With a longer lifecycle, synthetic oil allows you to stretch the time between changes, as they last anywhere from 7,500 to 15,000 miles. This longer lifecycle means you can save money and not worry about your engine’s performance degrading or being at risk. If you own a newer car with a turbocharged or hybrid engine, using synthetic oil is a must as these engines have higher compression ratios which cause extreme wear and tear.

How Often Should I Change My Oil?

Each vehicle and engine has different requirements for oil change intervals, but its been a general rule of thumb to change your oil every three months or 3,000 miles. These days, however, oil change intervals seem to be growing, with most manufacturers making the switch to synthetic or fully synthetic oil. Since synthetic oil takes far longer to degrade and can withstand higher temperatures, you should be able to stretch out the time you take between oil changes.

With most synthetic oil manufacturers claiming to get tens of thousands of miles between each oil change, it’s easy to get confused about when you should be swapping out your oil. The best way to know when to get an oil change is to read your car’s owner’s manual, as it will list all the various service intervals needed to maintain your car properly. If you’re unsure of when to change your oil, simply call up the parts and service experts here at Toyota of Abilene, we’ll be happy to provide you with that information.

Where Can I Get Synthetic Oil?

You can purchase synthetic oil from your local auto supply store, or you could stop in here at Toyota of Abilene as we stock the widest variety of synthetic oils around. Not only will we have the exact synthetic oil and filter you’re looking for in stock, but we’ll have it at the best price as well.

Is it time to change your oil? Have it changed here at Toyota of Abilene, as we have the best team of expert mechanics and the lowest prices in the Abilene area. Don’t waste your precious weekend beneath your vehicle, let our certified mechanics here at Toyota of Abilene Service Center, located in Abilene, TX.