5 Car Noises You Shouldn’t Ignore
Is something wrong with your vehicle? If so, there are usually some pretty clear indicators. Cars are built to let you know when something isn’t quite working as intended, so always keep your eyes peeled for any signs or symptoms of disrepair.
While you’re at it, keep your ears open, too. One of the easiest ways to discern that something is amiss with your vehicle is to pay attention to strange or unusual noises. Here are just a few of the most common sounds that could indicate an issue with your vehicle.
5 Automotive Noises to Listen For
- Hissing or chirping. Is your engine making a hissing or chirping sound? If so, you may have an issue with the catalytic converter. Alternatively, you could have a pipe or other component that’s suddenly sprung a leak. Hissing or chirping from your engine could be indicative of any number of problems with your vehicle, so noises like these will mean you need to get your engine checked out fast.
- Rattling. Heavy vibrations usually mean something’s wrong, whether you feel them in your steering wheel or in the wheels themselves. Rattling often points to a loose lug nut, but it could also indicate an issue with the steering column, with low power steering fluid, or even with your vehicle’s braking system.
- Squealing or grinding. Speaking of the braking system: if you hear a squealing or grinding sound every time you try to bring your vehicle to a stop, that could be dangerous. Chances are, your brake pads are worn down, and you should have them replaced as soon as possible.
- Rumbling. Another sound to listen up for is rumbling from the exhaust pipe. Usually, this points to either a hole in the muffler or a leak in the fuel injection system. Either way, you’ll want to get to a service center as quickly as possible.
- Whirring. Finally, keep your ears open for the sound of the engine whirring during acceleration. This could point to any number of engine issues that require prompt repair.
No matter what kind of strange sounds you’re hearing, it’s important to have them checked out by a qualified technician. To schedule maintenance with us, reach out to one of our body shop locations at your next convenience.
What to Do if Your Car Breaks Down on the Road
Car trouble is always frustrating, and it can be especially tough when you’re already on the road. From flat tires to engine failure, there are plenty of reasons why you could find yourself stranded somewhere. Here are a few tips for how to proceed when your car breaks down on the road.
What to Do When Your Car Breaks Down
Some general tips include:
- Turn on your hazard or emergency lights and leave them on until help arrives. This is an important way to communicate with other drivers that there’s a problem.
- Pull off the road, ideally parking on the right-hand shoulder. If possible, seek a safe and flat location that’s pretty far from oncoming traffic.
- Put on your parking brake, also known as the emergency brake, especially if you’re stalled on an incline or hill.
- If possible, remain in your vehicle. If you do need to get out to inspect the car for damage, get out on the side of the car that’s furthest from traffic.
- Do anything you can to signal to other cars that you’re stalled, and that they should proceed cautiously. Popping your hood or putting out flares can help.
- Call for help. Arrange for either a roadside assistance company or a towing service like the one we offer here at Zimbrick Body Shop to come take your car to the nearest service center.
What if There’s a Collision?
If your car is stalled due to a major collision or a fender-bender, you’ll first want to make sure everyone is okay. If there are obvious injuries, call 911 for help immediately. If not, you’ll want to direct the tow truck to the nearest auto paint shop in Madison, WI. You may also need to get windshield repair in Madison, WI.
Following a collision, it’s always wise to see a doctor to ensure that you’re okay, even if you don’t think you’ve been injured. Keep in mind that injuries from car accidents can take a few days to become apparent.If you have any questions about windshield repair, towing, body work, or any other automotive needs, we invite you to contact our Madison, WI body shop at any time. Our service center is always here to help.
What to Do After a Car Accident
If you’ve ever been in a car accident, then you know exactly how stressful this situation can be for everyone involved. If you’ve never had an accident, you should consider yourself lucky, but you never know what could happen in the future. It’s very important that you’re prepared to handle a car accident, which is why we’ve compiled this helpful car accident checklist for your use.
- Check if everyone is okay
First and foremost, you want to ensure that you, your passengers, and whoever else has been involved in the accident are all okay. Look around for immediate injuries. Even if you don’t see any apparent harm, there is still the possibility that you may have unseen injuries, so it’s recommended that you get checked out by a medical professional, depending on the severity of the accident. - Pull over
Pull over to the side of the road along with the other driver, and make sure that you have your hazard lights on. If you have road flares, use them, especially at night. Be extra careful when you exit the car. - Do not admit fault
Never admit that you are at fault in an accident. This can be held against you if the accident leads to a court case, and you may be held responsible for paying for damages to both vehicles. Legally, you are not required to admit fault. - Inform the police
Even if nobody is injured in the accident, you still need to inform the police. Call the non-emergency number and let them know where you are located so an officer can get to you as quickly as possible. If there are excessive injuries, you should always call 911 immediately. - Get the other driver’s information
Take a picture of the other driver’s license, insurance card, registration, and vehicle license plate. Also note the weather and/or road conditions, as well as the time, date, and location of the accident. This is all helpful information that can assist with insurance claims.
Call Zimbrick Body Shop Today
Have you recently been in a car accident in the greater Madison, Wisconsin region and need a reliable body shop to help with repairs? Then reach out to Zimbrick today and see how we can help you. Our team of service technicians will help you get your vehicle fixed and ready to hit the road again in no time.
Fixing Hail Damage with Paintless Dent Repair
A hail storm can come without warning. When it does, it can leave your vehicle looking like the surface of the moon, with craters dotting the hood and roof. In a particularly severe storm, you can even end up with broken windows.
Many people figure hail damage is just cosmetic and don’t bother to have it repaired. However, when the dents from hail damage are left untreated, the creases can crack and chip off over time and leave you with a blemished paint job, which increases the risk of rust and corrosion setting in.
It’s important to have hail damage repaired in a timely manner. Below are some of the ways we can do just that through our auto body repair services here at Zimbrick.
Paintless Dent Repair
Paintless dent repair (PDR) restores the body of a vehicle damaged by hail to brand new condition quickly and affordably. The method is called “paintless” because the original paint is completely preserved, and no fresh coat is needed.
How does it work? Paintless dent repair involves the use of special tools to slowly and carefully “massage” a dent out of existence. A technician first assesses the damage in question, then a special tool is used to apply pressure to the affected area, beginning with the outer edges of the dent and slowly working to its center until the dent eventually disappears.
Paintless dent repair has several advantages over traditional dent repair work, including a much lower cost, faster service (a typical service can be completed in only a few hours), better value retention for the affected vehicle, and a much cleaner finish since no fresh coat of paint is needed.
Auto Glass Repair
At Zimbrick Body Shop, we’re proud to offer a variety of auto glass repair services. If a severe hail storm has broken or damaged one of your vehicle’s windows, we can very easily solve the problem for you. Whether your windshield is simply chipped from a slight hit, or you’re missing a window and need a full replacement, we’ve got you covered.
If you think a small chip in one of your car’s windows is nothing to worry about, think again. Window damage on your car weakens the window’s strength and can lead to structural damage if left unrepaired, leading to a much more expensive job.
A Better Way to Repair Hail Damage
While there are some ways to repair hail damage yourself, it’s rarely easy or guaranteed. Fortunately, Zimbrick Body Shop offers multiple better ways to do so.
Contact us about paintless dent repair or auto glass repair at Zimbrick Body Shop in Madison, WI and schedule an appointment for auto body repair at your nearest location today.
What Body Shop Certifications to Look For
With constant innovation in the automotive industry, certifications are more important than ever for an auto body shop. They show customers how up-to-date and well-trained a shop’s technicians are, and by extension, what quality of repair work the customer can expect.
There are 5 major certifications customers should look for in an auto body repair shop.
Technician Certifications
ASE Certification:
- Prior to a technician being able to apply for the Automotive Service Excellence certification test, they must already have been well-educated in the classroom and have direct hands-on experience — ASE testing requires both a two-year degree in automotive repair and two years of previous on-the-job training.
- ASE certification is trusted and highly respected given its challenging exam is written by veteran automotive professionals. Nearly a third of technicians who take the test fail initially.
I-Car Certification:
- I-Car, or Inter-Industry Conference on Auto Collision Repairs, Certification keeps technicians versed on what’s new and needs to be learned in the repair field. Maintaining this certification requires annual training courses on the most recent information and repair methods.
Shop Certifications
AAA Certification:
To be considered an Approved Auto Repair Facility through AAA, a body shop must undergo annual inspections. This annual inspection helps ensure the repair shop’s ongoing quality, which translates to higher standards of excellence in the repairs they complete for their customers.
AAA-approved repair shops guarantee:
- Technicians that are either ASE-certified or have a manufacturer training certification
- Good standing with the BBB
- Proper licensing and insurance
- Mandatory warranties for repairs completed
- Up-to-date technology and tools for completing repairs on the newest vehicles
A+ Rating with the BBB:
- A number of factors go into a Better Business Bureau rating, such as the number of customer complaints to the BBB and how the business responds to these complaints. Businesses only receive an A+ rating when they’ve scored an impressive 97 or higher out of 100 possible rating points across the full range of factors.
OEM Certification:
- Cars are more advanced nowadays than ever before, and automobile innovation doesn’t appear to be slowing down. Repairing these ever more complex vehicles requires more specialized knowledge and training.
- OEM Certified repair shops use repair parts made by the original manufacturer rather than aftermarket parts. This ensures both high quality as well as factory-perfect fit and functionality.
Here at Zimbrick Body Shop, we pride ourselves on our extensive certifications and long history of quality work. Whether you’re in need of collision repair, dent removal, car painting, or glass repair, our staff of experienced professionals will get you and your car safely back on the road. If you have any questions, please contact us online or call one of our three locations for more information.
Types of Auto Body Damage You Should Never Ignore
Body damage on a vehicle often goes unaddressed. After all, it’s just cosmetic and won’t affect safety, performance, or the long-term health of the vehicle, right?
Not exactly. There are a few types of auto body damage you should never ignore, and for good reason. Let’s take a look at them below.
Scratched Paint
Body damage often leaves a scratch, ding, or chip in its wake. If these are deep enough to expose underlying metal to the elements, rust and corrosion can occur over time, severely reducing the vehicle’s lifespan.
Misaligned Paneling
If the damage to your vehicle’s body has left a door, trunk, or hood misaligned, it may not open or close properly. This can become much more than just a simple nuisance. People and items may not be safely secured during everyday commutes, or occupants may find themselves unable to quickly open a door in the event of an emergency.
Bent Frame
While it may look like damage is limited to your vehicle’s visible body, dents may be masking hidden damage to the frame. Always have the frame inspected by trusted professionals and properly aligned when necessary. If your vehicle is still pulling one direction or the other following an accident and realignment, it’s likely the frame has been bent. A damaged frame should never be ignored because it directly compromises the safety of everyone onboard if another collision occurs.
Sounds or Smells
If you notice a peculiar sound or smell when driving your vehicle after it has suffered body damage, there may be additional damage at play. Engine parts can be damaged in a collision, disrupting their functionality and jeopardizing the safety and performance of the vehicle.
Poor Alignment
Not every collision will bend your vehicle’s frame, but every collision has a chance of skewing your vehicle’s alignment. Not only is it unsafe and an annoyance to drive a vehicle with poor alignment, it can also accelerate the wear on your tires.
Have Your Body Damage Inspected at Zimbrick
If your vehicle has suffered auto body damage, schedule an appointment at your nearest Zimbrick Automotive body shop to have it inspected by professional technicians. Our service team can detect any underlying damage to the frame, alignment, or engine parts, and identify any potential problems that should not be overlooked. Zimbrick also offers complimentary online estimates for repairs when you submit photos of the damage with your smartphone.
Don’t ignore your auto body damage—let the Zimbrick Automotive team safely return you and your vehicle to the road.
Your windshield is one of the most vulnerable parts of your car. After all, it’s a large target that’s positioned right in the line of fire for debris and other objects. Not to mention, it’s also made of glass. Some cracks and chips are inevitable and unavoidable. But there are a few things you can do to help prevent auto glass damage.
Don’t tailgate
A lot of glass damage happens when you’re following too closely to the car in front of you and that vehicle kicks up a small rock in its wake. Trucks are especially known to send gravel airborne. Avoid following too closely to the vehicle in front of you, particularly on roads that aren’t well-paved.
Take cover
Auto glass damage can happen even when your car is parked. Park in a garage, carport, or covered area whenever possible to keep your windshield and windows out of the way of hail and other flying objects. And take caution when parking under trees as pine cones, acorns, and other falling debris could cause damage to your auto glass.
Properly remove ice
You know how much a windshield can freeze over in a Wisconsin winter. What you may not know is how much damage you can cause when removing it. Always use a plastic scraper or soft bristle brush combined with your windshield wipers and defroster. Metal scrapers can scratch your glass and compromise its integrity.
Don’t drive behind gravel trucks
Trucks hauling gravel often transport some of it right to the car behind them. If you see a gravel truck on the road, get in a different lane and keep a safe distance away.
Keep temperature changes gradual
Glass expands at high temperatures and then contracts when it’s exposed to the cold. And extreme temperature changes can place stress on the glass. When your car has been sitting in the hot sun, don’t just immediately blast the air conditioner. Start off on a lower setting first before gradually turning it up. The same is true when using the heater after your car has been sitting in the cold for an extended period of time.
See a Zimbrick Body Shop for Your Auto Glass Repair Needs
While you can do all of the above to try to prevent damage to your car windows, cracks and chips are still bound to happen every once in a while. And when they do, you need a repair shop you can trust.
See Zimbrick Body Shop in Madison, Wisconsin, for all your windshield repair needs. Our technicians are highly trained and experienced in performing auto glass repair, and can get you back on the road in no time. Schedule an appointment today and don’t let damage to your vehicle’s glass get in the way of your drive.
Know When to Repair or Replace Your Windshield
Most car owners have encountered a rock chip or cracked windshield at one time or another. The first instinct for most people is to just deal with it and drive on. After all, it’s just a little cosmetic blemish.
Actually your windshield is more important than you think! Your windshield plays an important role in the safety of you and your passengers. It works hand in hand with proper air-bag deployment, functionality of sensors, light refraction, and is even as important as the structural integrity of your vehicle. It’s never a good idea to drive with a cracked or chipped windshield.
When to Repair Your Windshield
Repairing a damaged windshield is typically more affordable than replacing one, so any small chip should be repaired ASAP! Any chip smaller than a dime in size that penetrates the outer layer of glass with a circular “spider web” look is a good candidate for repair.
When to Replace Your Windshield
There is a point at which the damage to a windshield is too extensive for repairs to which replacement is required. Once a windshield takes on a certain amount of damage it loses its ability to keep you safe.
If any of these circumstances are met, we will recommend replacement:
- Damage to the inner and/or outer layer of glass.
- Three or more chips in the windshield.
- Contaminates, visible impurities or discoloration.
- Any cracks.
- Chip in the driver’s line of vision.
Get Your Windshield Fixed in Madison
Our Auto Glass Services includes repairs and replacements for all makes and models. All of our work is performed by Certified Technicians using the latest technologies to restore your vehicle’s glass and get you back on the road quickly and safely.Whether you can get by with a repair or replacement, let’s just make sure safety is the #1 priority. Schedule your appointment today at Madison Zimbrick Auto Glass. Here at Zimbrick, if for some reason a repair that we attempt to fix fails, we will deduct the repair cost and apply it to a replacement fee. We average a 98% chip repair call back rating.
Types of Collisions and How Zimbrick Can Help
There are many types of driving maneuvers to be made on the road, so it stands to reason there are at least as many types of collisions. And with so many different types of collisions, there are just as many ways we can help.
Below are some of the most common types of auto collisions and how Zimbrick Body Shops can help.
Rear-End Collisions
Perhaps the most common type of car accident is the rear-end collision. These collisions happen a lot during congested city driving when cars are lined up bumper to bumper and engaged in a series of stopping and accelerating.
Rear-end collisions typically cause a lot of bumper damage along with damage to trunks, hoods, and even frames.
T-Bones
A T-bone collision occurs when vehicles that are traveling perpendicular to one another collide, with the front end of one car crashing into the side of the other. T-bone accidents happen a lot at intersections when a driver runs a red light or stop sign or fails to yield a right-of-way.
T-bone collisions can cause considerable body damage to the side of the car being hit, as the side panels of vehicles are less sturdy than the front end. You can usually expect windows to break during a T-bone collision.
Sideswipe Collisions
A sideswipe collision happens when two cars come into contact while traveling parallel to each other. Sideswipes are common when a car is merging lanes and the driver either fails to look before merging or doesn’t see another car in their blind spot.
Sideswipes typically don’t cause much denting, but paint jobs tend to get very scratched up in a sideswipe collision.
Head-On Collisions
Head-on collisions are the most dangerous type of accident and occur when two vehicles traveling in opposite directions collide with one another. Head-on collisions are usually caused by negligent, distracted, or intoxicated driving.
Head-on collisions can cause considerable damage to the front ends and engines of both vehicles and often leaves a car totaled beyond repair.
Single-Car Collisions
A single car collision is when a car collides with a tree, fence, sign or other object. These accidents can be caused by a driver falling asleep at the wheel, intoxication, inclement weather, distraction, mechanical failures, or swerving to miss a pedestrian, animal, or debris.
Single-car collisions generally cause damage to the front or side of a vehicle. Cars involved in these types of collisions also may be prone to rolling over, which can cause damage to the hood and roof.
How Zimbrick Can Help
No matter the type of collision involved, the certified collision repair at Zimbrick Body Shops can help. Find out more about the collision repair and estimate process, and contact us with any questions about our collision repair service, to schedule an appointment, or to receive an online estimate or your vehicle’s damage today.
The Zimbrick Collision Repair Process
You didn’t plan on getting into an accident. But we have a plan in place to get you back on the road. Learn about our detailed collision repair process designed to restore your vehicle’s damage quickly, easily and affordably.
Gather evidence and deliver a preliminary estimate
We’ll get the process started by gathering all of your vehicle’s information and conducting a visual inspection of the damage to provide you with a general idea of what’s in store as far as pricing and timeliness.
Approval
If the information provided to you during the preliminary estimate is satisfactory, we will roll up our sleeves and get to work. This step in the collision repair process may require an agreement with your insurer.
Book your appointment and order parts
Once we have your approval, we’ll go ahead and schedule an appointment for your car and order any necessary parts so we’ll be ready with what we need on your appointment day.
Disassembly
This is when we’ll begin peeling back the outer layers of damage to get a complete review of the work needed to return your car to the road. Additional parts may be ordered if necessary and your preliminary estimate is adjusted as needed and finalized.
Structural repair
The real danger lies beneath, and our team makes sure to properly assess and repair any underlying structural damage that may have resulted from your collision. We carefully measure everything according to the manufacturer’s specifications and use only OEM-approved equipment and tools to restore your car back to the way it was when it left the assembly line.
Body repair
Once any structural damage has been repaired, we then piece your car back together and repair the external damage to the body.
Touch-ups
After all panels and bumpers are back into place, we then prep, prime, and paint your car to get it looking like new again. Other materials, like lights, trim, and molding, are fastened back into place and we test wheel alignments, electrical and mechanical parts, and even conduct a road test to make sure everything is in working order.
We then top it all off by washing and vacuuming your vehicle and performing one final appearance inspection .
Delivery
The final step in the collision repair process is having you return to our location to pick up your vehicle, discuss the repairs and parts used, and see you drive off safe and satisfied.
Schedule Your Appointment in Madison, WI
Schedule an appointment for collision repair today at one of our three locations in Madison, Wisconsin. Our body shops on West Beltline Highway, Wayne Terrace, and North Stoughton Road are an easy drive from Sun Prairie and other surrounding suburbs.
You never know when you might suffer a collision. But you always know you can count on Zimbrick Body Shops and our reliable repair process to see you through.
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