There's a quick test you can do on your own to test your battery health. Start the car about a dozen times. Every time it should start normally. If it it stops cranking and starts clicking and we know it's a weak battery. Here in the desert on a normal flooded battery we typically don't get more than about 3 years out of them due to the heat. So you should always have the battery tested and not just replace it.

Well what you should do about it is shut the car off and get it towed in and get it checked out. If you are low on coolant or radiator fluid or antifreeze or whatever you want to call it, that can be the cause of your overheating and if it is, you can do damage very quickly to your engine. We have a very lightweight engines, aluminum parts expanding and contracting quickly. It's very easy to blow a head gasket or do damage if you drive a car that's overheating.

I've mentioned a number of times that after a tire is about 6 years old, we want to look at it pretty closely and consider replacing it, if our budget will allow. You also want to get a professional to look at them. Now I want you to know that the date code is only going to be on one side of the tire so it depends on how the tire is mounted on the car. On this particular one it is on the outside so it makes a little easier for us.

So there is confusion out there that all we need to do is change the oil on our car. That's the only maintenance that's required, but that is not really true.

We have to be a little careful, make sure that you interview the company that's doing your oil changes for you and see what they're actually checking and what they're not.

Can the heat affect your car battery? Welcome to Mercie J, where compassion and craftsmanship come together, I'm Rick Smith. So first of all, the heat affects just about everything on a car. If you live in Arizona and you left your cell phone in the car by accident and gone to lunch, have you ever experienced coming out and your cell phone is turned off because it overheated?