Overland Park Auto Repair

Recently a customer brought in a 1990 VW Jetta, which was experiencing complications from a cobbled-together aftermarket electrical wiring harness. These complications included dangerous arching and burning. The very week we rewired the vehicle properly, the customer encountered a scene which reinforced the life-and-death importance of proper vehicle wiring. He agreed to let us share it here: Paul, Thanks very much for your tenacity, endurance, diagnostic skills, and long-suffering stick-to-it strengths. It has brought great success. The little VW runs very, very well. Cold or warm starts are perfect. Engine runs without any hesitation, stuttering, sputtering, backfiring, exploding, fire-balling, etc. That is all good. Absence of fireballs is especially good! Three days ago, we were out driving around in that automobile and were eastbound on Blackfish Parkway, approaching Pflumm. Ahead we saw smoke, flames, and a Shawnee FD pumper truck. The Shawnee police had the stre ... read more

Last time we shared the eye-opening experience a customer of ours had while witnessing a vehicle fire. He was kind enough to take time to thank us for fixing the dangerous wiring system in his car to ensure he and his family are safe while traveling. So just what could have caused that car to go up in flames? Faulty wiring can cause a fire. When any combustible material gets hot enough, it will burn. This can happen to a car that typically has some type of aftermarket add-on electrical device which has been improperly wired. When an automotive engineer designs a circuit, the circuit must be protected from damage with a fuse. A fuse is simply a small piece of wire designed to melt when a given amount of excessive amperage goes through it, thus stopping the flow of electricity. A wire (or any conductor) is made up of many, many atoms. An electric current (electricity) is a literal flow of electrons from atom to atom. It starts at one side of the battery and is constantly try ... read more