Mullen’s Garage

Mullen’s Garage Small shop in Batavia. 20 years experience. ASE Master certified, GM Master certified.

Got a phone call on Saturday, friends kids car had a wheel fall off while driving. 2 lug nuts missing and 3 snapped off....
11/17/2025

Got a phone call on Saturday, friends kids car had a wheel fall off while driving. 2 lug nuts missing and 3 snapped off. Car was towed to the closest ford dealer and they looked at it in the parking lot and quoted a new wheel hub. They charged $190 for that quote and wanted $1,100 for the repair. So a free quote later and another tow bill and we got it down to $400 for a new hub and all new lug nuts installed. Dealers man, they make a lot of money but they have a lot of mouths to feed off 1 broken car. Porters, service assistants, office workers and a slew of managers. You’re not just paying the technician.

Started off as an alternator, on disassembly find a leaking radiator as well, it happens, on older cars there is normall...
07/27/2025

Started off as an alternator, on disassembly find a leaking radiator as well, it happens, on older cars there is normally multiple things worn out but still going. Some times we find them in the process.

Came out pretty nice. Friend backed into someone in a parking lot. Got quoted by shops $2500-3000, was able to get after...
04/06/2025

Came out pretty nice. Friend backed into someone in a parking lot. Got quoted by shops $2500-3000, was able to get aftermarket bumpers and have them painted for under $900. I don’t pull dents or paint cars but I can put bumper on lol. You can tell the older plastic is faded to the new and the paint is a little fresher without blending, but for the price it looks great and everyone is happy.

Timing chains, timing chains, timing chains. In the last two months done a Kia, a Hyundai, a Nissan, Chevy and ford. Dod...
04/06/2025

Timing chains, timing chains, timing chains. In the last two months done a Kia, a Hyundai, a Nissan, Chevy and ford. Dodges just eat the camshafts, no saving those.
So on this one we went aftermarket on parts. It’s a 2016. OEM parts are made to last 10 years 100k miles, hopefully. They are higher quality even if they look the same or by the same company, the OEM manufactuer ones have a higher quality control and tolerances than what they sell to the general public, again why they cost more. Decent aftermarket can get you 3-5 years hopefully. The cost difference for parts was nearly $900 for the timing chains alone, we did brakes and both front control arms as well. In 5 years this vehicle will have nearly 180k miles and parts will be hard to find, plus by then larger expenses like transmission or engine replacement can come up. With the aftermarket we got the most bang for the buck and it’s ready for its next 80k miles.

More and more timing chains, they are becoming 100k maint. Yes the manufactuer says “lifetime” but there definition is o...
03/25/2025

More and more timing chains, they are becoming 100k maint. Yes the manufactuer says “lifetime” but there definition is only about how long they warranty it for. That is its calculated “useful life” or lifetime. It’s a clever way to phrase it. But we rip them apart and hang more chains at the cost of what an entire engine used to be. This is the new world, mechanics are busy

Hybrids man. 2019 Kia Niro with a check engine light on for p0017, exhaust cam out of Sync. We tried the solenoid since ...
03/04/2025

Hybrids man. 2019 Kia Niro with a check engine light on for p0017, exhaust cam out of Sync. We tried the solenoid since they are only $50 and it tested defective but no luck. Full timing component replacement. Chain, gears, guide and tensioner. Very common on modern cars with 100,000 miles or more. The last two pictures you can really see the difference in the tensioners showing the last chain was pretty stretched out.

Inlaws came by to see the baby and brought the jeep down. Had a tire blow out a while back and have been battling the ti...
03/01/2025

Inlaws came by to see the baby and brought the jeep down. Had a tire blow out a while back and have been battling the tire pressure light being on ever since. Went to the dealer who installed the tire 3 times and another dealer when it was never fixed. After 4 trips to 2 dealerships find out no one ever checked the sensor. It’s missing….. well broken off inside the tire we found it 🤦‍♂️

Prettiest 180hp I’ve ever built. Goona look amazing all done. Went to a single belt and added air conditioning for a coo...
02/22/2025

Prettiest 180hp I’ve ever built. Goona look amazing all done. Went to a single belt and added air conditioning for a cool cruiser.

Not car related but tools. Been doing some house work lately and just like with doing new projects with cars new project...
01/27/2025

Not car related but tools. Been doing some house work lately and just like with doing new projects with cars new projects tend to mean new tools.
Electric tools are the new thing especially in automotive. I got them on first offering many years ago and never looked back. Was nice not having an air hose. But there are so many options and styles you will go broke owning them all, I know people who do that lol. For me personally I like ryobi, they get a lot of hate for being cheap but they work. I’ve used the 3/8 driver in the shop exclusively for years without issue, and started getting home tools as well. They take abuse for sure and are not very expensive. For moderate use they do very well. I’ve seen every brand fail, they all do after a year or two of heavy use, warranty and replacement cost is everything for electric tools, they have a short life expectancy and are consumable tools. So cheap buy in is a plus for me, last a couple years even better. Battery cost is huge and ryobis are some of the cheapest. They have served me well. Some times finiky but always work in the end.

So there should be a little red tab in that hole. It’s called a non return valve and is on every turbo 1.4L GM engine. I...
12/31/2024

So there should be a little red tab in that hole. It’s called a non return valve and is on every turbo 1.4L GM engine. It’s rubber and it’s there to keep boost pressure from the turbo going into the crank case. It’s rubber and breaks off over time and gets eaten by the engine. You may never realize that happened until you accerate hard and let off the gas really fast. Then your car starts running poorly and misfires all over the place. Well the boost pressure just blew out the pcv or***ce causing a large vacuum leak and sucked in your crank seal. The non return valve is only serviced with the entire intake manifold. The pcv orrifice is part of the valve cover and the entire cover needs to be replaced and also, the crank seal. In the GM world we started calling it the unholy trinity. You have to do all 3 parts to fix it. If you just replace the valve cover you’ll probably have a chirping noise from the crank seal till the turbo blows out the new pcv because the non return valve is missing. Cars are not cheap to repair anymore and they tend to gr***de nowadays taking out multiple parts.

Grinding is a bad noise, this person tried to get all the life out of the breaks. They were grinding for two to three we...
12/18/2024

Grinding is a bad noise, this person tried to get all the life out of the breaks. They were grinding for two to three weeks. Out side pad fell out being too thin and was stoping with the caliper till that started leaking brake fluid. Things get more expensive the more they aren’t felt with, but it all better now. New pads rotors and calipers up front and shoes and drums in the rear. Stops like it should.
Second photos with the grinding pad still there were just replaced at the dealership a month or two ago, she’s going back. Best guess is somehow they installed 1 old pad. It looks different and nothing else makes sense. It’s getting scary out there.

12/17/2024

PSA!!!!!!!!
So I’ve been doing car work for a while and cars are being hit massively by inflation. The cost of replacement parts is going up by the day. Many people who bought newer cars were smart and bought extended warranties with them because repairs nowadays are expensive and the contracts pay for themselves quickly. But we are heading into times that are very hard on automotive. Parts prices when they calculated the contract are not the same, all have risen by atleast 40% from 4-5 years ago and lately we’ve seen some 400% jumps.
My wife was telling me that they had approval from an extended warranty for a customer at her work. The part, a strut, was $300~ when the contract approved it. There was issues with the customer and the work couldn’t be performed until now weeks later. The part now costs $1200 and the warranty company is trying to deny it. It gets muddy on who’s at fault and what should be done.
People with fords have seen the crank bolt that holds the harmonic balancer on go up 400%, it is a very common part due to rampent timing chain failures. Customer finally gets the funds for a large job and the goal just got moved $400 down the road. It’s not fun being in this position or having to tell people this. Or the extended warranty tries to deny it because it’s higher than what they have the job listed at.
There are also stop loss limits on extended warranties, many are $10,000. Which is good because engine replacement is now $7-9000 on average for cars and small suvs, as long as the turbo is still good or that’s another $3000 and you have out of pocket for the rest. But that also means these contracts may only cover 1 repair.
Back in 2007-2009 during the Global financial crisis I had extended warranty companies tell me they “were experiencing financial troubles and to have the customer pay now and they will try to cut the customer a check later”. And few were out of business when we tried to call them. There are warning signs and the inflation of prices affect all industries with prepaid service agreements. If you got a contract make sure you use it, even just tell your mechanic to look it over for anything that’s covered, they should know the drill.

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By Appointment
Batavia, IL
60510

Telephone

+16303449493

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