Dynamic Friction Company (DFC) is renowned for their unparalleled quality and innovation. Their product portfolio showcases a commitment to OEM-inspired excellence and application-specific formulations, ensuring the perfect fit and performance for your vehicle. DFC Brake Kits help ensure a successful brake job and prevent unwanted surprises by installing matched rotors, friction and hardware all at the same time. From March 1, 2024 through March 15, 2024, DFC is offering RockAuto.com customers an exclusive 10% instant rebate on their Pro-Kit 3000 and OE-Kit 5000 Brake Kits.

Pro-Kit 3000 - Designed for the budget conscious driver, DFC's Pro-Kit 3000 delivers a competent, no-frills brake job. Each kit includes smooth, non-directional rotors, ceramic brake pads and stainless steel hardware.

OE-Kit 5000 - For drivers seeking OE brake performance, DFC's OE-Kit 5000 is designed to be a direct replacement for the components that came on your vehicle from the factory. These kits feature a pad material that matches the OE material, smooth, non-directional rotors and stainless steel hardware.

Whether you are upgrading your daily driver or enhancing your high-performance vehicle with specialized braking solutions, DFC is a premier choice for advanced braking technology.

To see details for the DFC rebate and promotions from other brake part manufacturers like Power Stop and Bosch, go to the Promotions & Rebates page. While shopping, watch for the yellow next to the part listings to save even more on RockAuto's already reliably low prices!

RockAuto is excited to announce two new T-shirt styles and colors! New items include:

• Dark Chocolate, Short-Sleeved classic T-Shirt made of 100% combed ringspun cotton
• Deep Red, Long-Sleeved, lightweight, and highly breathable moisture-wicking performance fabric T-Shirt

Shop all RockAuto Apparel & Gifts in the "Tools & Universal Parts" tab of the RockAuto.com Catalog.

After determining that the struts in my now "vintage" 1997 Saturn SW2 station wagon were most likely factory originals, in spite of the previous long-term owner otherwise caring meticulously for the car, I ordered replacement struts from RockAuto. After they arrived, I set about the replacement procedure, starting with the passenger side, jacking up the car and placing it on jack stands.

Of course, the two pairs of nuts and bolts holding the struts to the lower arms were well oxidized into place and required a degree of penetrating oil to loosen. After completing the passenger side strut, I moved over to the driver's side. These nuts proved much more stubborn, and before long I was applying a small torch for heat and more penetrating oil. I progressed to beating the wrench with a rubber mallet, then a ball-peen hammer. Eventually, not one, but two socket wrenches had broken, both very vintage socket wrenches that qualified as antiques themselves, the latter a long-handled swivel-headed socket that had saved my me many times in previous repairs. After calling my associates for access to a breaker bar, I finally decided to head to the local outlet of a well-known cheap tool emporium.

After arriving back to my garage, I put my best socket on the breaker bar, crouched down to pull up with my full brute strength on the breaker bar, began to pull up - then stopped. "Wait! Which way am I going here?!" , "Lefty loosey, righty tighty!" I had been tightening the nut on the bolt the entire time! I changed the position of the socket and bar, pushed down rather than pulling up like I had the other side. I winced in embarrassment as the nut slowly groaned off the bolt.

Al in Arizona

Working at Chrysler's Detroit/Windsor area assembly plants in the late '80s, I tried to hope that all the Plymouth Sundances, Dodge B150s and Chrysler Town & Countrys gradually coming to life on the assembly lines would be going to doting owners living in temperate climates where warm, gentle breezes blew all day long. Seeing an engine block heater would always break my reverie. That car or truck was going somewhere cold. If it had an engine block heater and no air conditioner then it was going somewhere really cold.

The new Chryslers with engine block heaters deserved my respect but not my sympathy. They may have been headed to the Arctic Circle, but at least the engine block heater was a sign that they were going to owners trying to take care of their new vehicles. A pre-warmed engine will start easier and reach its optimum operating temperature faster, which means a little less fuel consumption and pollution. Hopefully, warmer parts and lubricants will help reduce wear.

Plugging an engine block heater's cord into an electrical socket is an easy way to pamper a vehicle and stop worrying its engine won't start in cold weather. Check new-to-you used cars to see if they already have an engine block heater. My oldest daughter was pleasantly surprised to find the cord for an original equipment (OE) engine block heater neatly coiled underneath her beloved 2005 Mustang's radiator.

RockAuto has replacement OE-type and aftermarket engine block heaters that fit into a freeze plug hole in the block, plumb into a coolant hose or snap into a cartridge receptacle. Look under "Engine" and then "Engine Block Heater" in the RockAuto.com catalog to see engine heating solutions available for your specific vehicle. Replacements for some damaged or missing OE engine heater cords may be found under "Electrical-Connector."

Under the "Tools & Universal Parts" tab, "Engine" and finally "Heater" is an exceptionally easy-to-install engine block heater heat pad you may not be aware of. An adhesive backed heat pad permanently sticks to the engine oil pan, transmission fluid pan, diesel fuel tank or other clean, bare metal surface that you want to keep warm. The installation instructions usually finish up with sealing of the edges of the heat pad with high temperature silicone gasket maker and routing the attached power cord to whatever safe, accessible location you prefer.

OE-type Cartridge & Freeze Plug (top), Coolant Hose & Silicone Pad Block Heaters (bottom)

What the heat pad is attached to acts as a heat sink for the pad. The entire surface of the heat pad needs to be tightly attached to a smooth place on the engine oil pan (or other metal pan/tank) or it might prematurely burn out. The heat pad manufacturer warns not to attach a heat pad to plastic parts. (Some late-model Ford, VW, etc. engines have plastic engine oil pans.) The plastic part may melt and/or the plastic surface may not provide an adequate heat sink for the heat pad.

With summer on its way, you may just want to forget about freezing cold, but nice weather is actually the best time to be under a vehicle prepping the mounting surface for a heat pad and deciding where to route a power cord. This is also a good time for an engine block heater project because these parts frequently sell out when cold weather inevitably returns. Remember how hard it was to buy a snow brush/scraper in the middle of that epic snowstorm...

Tom Taylor,
RockAuto.com

To read more of Tom's articles, click this link and choose from story titles on the Newsletter Archives page.