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Everything You Need to Know About Your Kia Car & Cold Weather

2016 Kia Sorento
Illinois winters can be brutal. Not only for you, but for your car. Cold temperatures can make it more difficult for your engine to work properly and snow, ice, and sleet can wreak havoc on your tires. Now that it’s fall, Classic Kia wants you to get your vehicle ready for the winter. Here is everything you need to know about your Kia vehicle and the cold days ahead. Consider Snow Tires If you have a long commute to work or are planning to visit friends and family this holiday season, the road ahead may not be a smooth one. Consider upgrading to snow tires to improve your grip on snowy highways and icy back roads. While a Kia car is more than capable of handling any type of weather thrown its way, help your car out a little with all-weather tires and treads. Ensure Your Four Wheel Drive System is Working Properly One of the biggest selling points of SUVs and crossovers is their powerful four wheel drive system, which greatly improves traction in slippery conditions. While most people don’t utilize their 4WD in the summer, it is necessary for cold and icy weather conditions. Make an appointment at our Kia service center to guarantee your four wheel drive is working properly. Check Your Battery Your battery will give you little notice before it dies, and they love to expire at the worst possible time. Extremely cold temperatures can reduce your car’s battery power by up to 50 percent. If your battery is over three years old, have it tested now at Classic Kia’s certified service center. You want to guarantee your battery is winter-ready. To ensure that your 2016 Kia Soul is ready for wintery roads, follow the aforementioned advice. Classic Kia can give you the scoop about how to get your car ready for winter and everything you need to know about how to ensure that it’s safe.
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What to Do When Your Car is Scratched

When Kenosha, WI drivers take advantage of our month-long Black Friday Kia car deals, the last thing they want is for their beautiful new car to get scratched or banged up. All the same, life happens. When it does, our dealers at Classic Kia can help to get your vehicle looking its best again. more Depending on where a scratch is located it can be merely a cosmetic issue, or something more serious. Paint scratches are relatively harmless, aside from being difficult to look at. If the scratch is extremely shallow, you may not even need to worry about it. Clear coat scratches only minimally affect the paint (if at all) and can likely be wiped away with little effort. If the paint is scratched, however, you’ll need to bring your vehicle to our Kia service center, where our service professionals can find your matching paint color in our Kia parts department to touch up any of the areas that need attention. When the scratch goes deeper than the paint, things become a bit trickier. In this instance, something will need to be used to recreate a level plane so that the touch-up paint won’t just look like a painted scratch. While scratches are bad, cracks are worse. Paint scratches are not necessarily an immediate issue, whereas windshield cracks are. When you drive with a cracked windshield, not only does it hinder your view, the weakened structure is far more prone to damage. If the crack is small, we can fill it in for you. If it gets bigger, we will have to replace the whole windshield. Acting at the first sign of trouble is your best course of action when it comes to your windshield. Safety is the top concern, but feeling confident about your car matters as well. At Classic Kia we seek to make sure you have both.

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Making Sure You Pass the Emissions Test

Classic Kia in Waukegan, IL knows how important passing the emissions test is to drivers. Not only does it affect the environment, but your registration as well. That is why your Kia dealer near Kenosha, WI wants to offer a few suggestions on how to maximize your chances of passing the test and saving yourself a lot of grief. more Check Engine Light If your check engine light is on, it’s best not to even bother going in for the test. Something as simple as a loose or cracked gas cap can set off the check engine light. The light alerts you to a problem, but it is less forthcoming about where the problem is or how severe. That is why, if you want to get the light to go out, you should bring your vehicle to us here in our Kia service center so that we can run a full diagnostic on it and address any problems we find. While the light may go out on its own, the issue it was indicating may subsist and still cause your vehicle to fail the test. Catalytic Converter As intimidating as that alliteration might be, and as important as the job it performs definitely is, the catalytic converter is one of the easiest problems to solve. A catalytic converter converts the harmful emissions your car produces so they don’t get out into the environment. The most common problem of the catalytic converter is when oil and gas residue build up and impede its work. However, all you have to do to get rid of that residue is hit relatively high speeds on the highway. The additional heat from the additional energy expenditure will burn away the residue. Try to make a habit of it as you get close to your test day. Classic Kia is here if you need any more help with the emissions test or any other automotive issue!

Young mechanic fixing the brakes of a car at an auto shop

Maintaining Safe Brakes

The importance of brake safety can never be understated. Here at Classic Kia, your Kia dealer serving the Kenosha, WI area, we know that every time you get behind the wheel, you need your brakes to work properly. Regular maintenance is the only way to make that happen. more The basics of the braking system rely upon the friction between your brake pads and brake discs. Where there is friction, there is going to be wear and tear. Certain factors can cause that wear and tear to intensify, such as misaligned components or dramatic quality disparities. Brakes are not parts you want to skimp on. Worn brake pads or discs are not problems that will go away if you ignore them. In fact, deterioration accelerates the worse they get. Brake pads tend to wear out more quickly and thus need to be replaced more often. While brake pads can be replaced without replacing the disc, when replacing discs, both the disc and the pads should be changed out. Furthermore, after your brake pads and discs have been replaced, it is important to allow a period for them to align properly. This involves a bit softer braking than you might be accustomed to until both parts are perfectly synced. There will be plenty of signs that your brakes need work. For example, if you hear a sound when you use your brakes, you should have them looked at. Abnormal vibration is another clear sign. If you do notice any of these signs, don’t hesitate to bring your 2017 Kia Forte into the Kia service center here at Classic Kia in Waukegan, IL. Staying on top of brake safety is vital to safe driving. If you think there’s an issue with your brakes, even if you haven’t noticed any of the symptoms listed here, please have them checked out immediately. Better safe than sorry.