Car Maintenance Advice - Make Your Car Last Longer
Owning a car is expensive. Despite advances in engine technology, car parts manufacturing and extended car service intervals, your car can still burn money in repair bills. You can do something about it -for free! Best10Tips gives you some great basic car maintenance advice that is CHEAP and can be done by EVERYONE.
Even if you don’t care much for car maintenance, getting your hands dirty or grovelling around in your driveway, you can still make your car last longer by changing the way you treat it. Your modern car doesn’t need much but if you forget about basic care, your car will let you down. You will remember that when the repair bills come in.
- If you do nothing else under the hood of you car, quickly check the fluid levels - at least once a month. This includes checking oil, coolant (water), brake fluid, steering and transmission fluids. None of the fluids should deplete significantly. If they suddenly drop in one month, something is wrong. Take your car to a mechanic BEFORE it gets expensive.
- Keep your car tyres inflated to the right pressure. Running your car on tyres with incorrect pressures wears them out quickly and is dangerous. Correctly inflated tyres that, over long period, wear unevenly tell you that there is some kind of fault with your car steering or suspension.
- Avoid running your car with a low fuel level. Sediment in the bottom of fuel tank gets pushed into the fuel filter and it will need changing more quickly. Keep at least a quarter of a tank in your car.
- Do use the handbrake (parking brake) when waiting and pulling away up a slope. This helps an automatic transmission and, if you drive a car with a manual gearbox, it will slow down the wear on the clutch.
- If you are not keen on getting your car serviced every year do, at least, get the oil and oil filter changed every year. Most Drive-In workshops should do it quite cheaply and it makes a huge difference to the well being of your car engine.
- If your windscreen washer starts to squirt a very bubbly mixture that smells stongly of detergent, it is probably about to run out. Top it up NOW before you really need to it clear your car windscreen.
- If you can be bothered to wash your car (I very rarely can), don’t use washing up liquid! It destroys the wax coating that is protecting your car paint and eventually dulls the whole paint job .
- When you start your car, a red light with an oil can may show for a while. If it starts to take longer to disappear when the engine is running, your really need to check the oil level. Many modern cars have some kind of digital oil presssure gauge.
- If you are not too keen on all things mechanical, including basic care maintenance, get some cheap breakdown cover. Most breakdown services offer reasonable rates for basic cover and it is worth it. Even if you think that you could manage to change a wheel, what about in the dark and in the rain? You will probably find that the wheel nuts have been done up far too tight and you can’t shift them anyway.
- The best way that make your car last longer is to change your driving style. Try taking it a bit steadier , ease up on the heavy braking and thrashing your car around corners. If I manage to do this simple piece of FREE car maintenance, I will let you know how it goes.
