January 3, 2017
Sometimes busy Walled Lake residents dream about going back to the “simpler” days of our grandparents. But if you could travel back in time and take a road trip around Michigan in a Model T, you might change your mind. The improved designs and quality of today's automobiles have significantly reduced the amount of time Walled Lake residents spend at the side of the road during breakdowns. With proper maintenance, today's vehicles can stay on the road longer than ever before.
Some of those improvements, however, have led to higher repair costs. For example, older cars often broke down from vapor lock. Gas vaporized while traveling from the gas tank to the fuel pump. No gas, no power. The car quits going. The solution was simple — you just sat by the road until the car would start up again. Today's Walled Lake drivers would hardly tolerate that kind of inconvenience, and it's likely that yesterday's Walled Lake drivers didn't care much for it, either. So on today's vehicles, the fuel pump is actually located inside the gas tank. Problem solved. No more vapor lock. The downside is that now it costs a lot more to repair or replace a fuel pump at Walled Lake area auto service centers.
Walled Lake drivers certainly should be grateful for the improvements in auto design that keep us off the side of the road, but it comes at a price. Vehicle care in Michigan simply costs more than it used to. So if you think about it, Walled Lake drivers can avoid many vehicle repairs by preventive maintenance. If we plan for maintenance, we can avoid a lot of costly repairs.
Just a bit of auto advice from Tuffy Walled Lake: If you like new vehicles and can afford them, then buy them. But if you are buying a new vehicle every few years because you're afraid of the higher repair costs for older vehicles, then you ought to take a second look at the numbers. You can save a lot of money on car payments and Michigan auto insurance with an older vehicle and preventive auto maintenance can help you avoid most car repair bills. And if you budget for preventive maintenance you have done at Tuffy Walled Lake, it can become as routine as a car payment — only a whole lot less!
Tuffy Walled Lake
784 N. Pontiac Trail
Walled Lake, Michigan 48390
248.624.4440

October 27, 2025
Heat is one thing that can damage a vehicle, especially if a problem isnt taken care of soon. Be on the lookout for signs that its getting too hot in some parts of your vehicle, starting with the most obvious one: the heat gauge/warning light on your instrument panel. When you see that heat gaug... More

October 23, 2025
Its always more comfortable in your vehicle when you can control temperature and humidity in the cabin. Air conditioning, which is standard on most newer vehicles, is a vital part of that comfort, and a key component of that system is the condenser. The condenser converts the refrigerant gas into... More

October 12, 2025
When you are comfortably headed down the road, you may not realize how many of the imperfections in the driving surface are being smoothed out, so you hardly feel most of them. You can thank your shock absorbers for a lot of that comfort, and its important to make sure you keep your shocks in go... More