Blog
1977 Corvette Engine 350 Chevy Engine Replacement
We normally stick to German cars, but sometimes we get sidetracked. Most of our techs have other automotive experience and interests outside of German cars and we can get talked into working on other cars too. In this case my neighbor had a 77 corvette with a bad engine. He had picked up [...]
Porsche Boxster Engine Rebuild
We have now done several rebuilds on the 996 and 986 engines. All of the engines we have rebuilt have had failed intermediate shaft bearings. Some years ago we saw an early engine with the D chunk cylinder wall failure, but that customer elected not to repair the engine. In the case of [...]
BMW 3 series E46 Cylinder Head Gasket and Pulled Head Studs
A failed cylinder head gasket is fairly common for E46 3 series BMW's. The root cause is usually a problem with the cooling system. Faulty thermostats, bad radiators, bad cooling fans and leaking cooling systems must be address immediately with these cars or they can cause severe engine damage. What happens is the [...]
BMW 528i water pump replacement
This 5 series BMW came in with a leaking water pump. Luckily the owner was attentive and brought it in before more serious problems developed (see previous post). These pumps usually start leaking from the drive shaft but can also leak at the seal to the block. These sometimes develop a loose impeler [...]
Porsche Cayenne Turbo Replacement
This Cayenne came in to us with a customer concern about smoke coming out of the tailpipes at about 100,000 miles. An inspection of the tailpipes confirmed oily residue, further inspection of the turbo boost pipes showed liquid oil in the turbo pipes, a sure sign of failing turbos. We have seen some [...]
Porsche 911 Turbo S Ceramic Brake Replacement
The Porsche 911 turbo can be optioned with awesome ceramic brakes. Saving several pounds each and offering exceptional stopping ability they are really an engineering achievement. They do have some drawback though. In this case the customer had taken the car on the track with the stability management system engaged. The stability management [...]
Porsche 996 engine rebuild
This engine had the classic intermediate shaft bearing failure. I have not seen and actual data on the failure rate of these bearings but many sources estimate it to be about 1%. When this bearing fails there is typically a loud banging noise coming from the engine and and a large oil leak [...]
Volkswagen Jetta Parking Brake Cable
The Parking brake cables on these VW Jettas can rust internally. This can cause the parking brake not to engage properly or not to disengage, neither of which are good situations. This is a pretty straightforward Volkswagen repair. Some interior panels are removed and the cables are detached from the parking brake assembly. They [...]
VW Jetta TDI Catalytic Converter Replacement
This particular Volkswagen Repair found a turbo charger that failed. It was severe failure where the impeller came off the turbo and large amounts of oil went through the turbo into the exhaust. We let the customer know when we installed the turbo that the catalytic converter would most likely have to be replaced as [...]
Audi A4 Brake Job
Doing a brake job on an Audi A4 seems like a pretty simple job, and its certainly no problem for our factory trained technicians. Its the details that make sure the end result is a quiet, safe brake repair that restores the original Audi factory performance to you braking system. At DART auto [...]