Regular Car Maintenance, a Recipe for a Long Service Life
Posted in: Driving Tips, News.
Cars are beautiful machines, and of course complex ones. On an average, a car has 30,000 parts and many of them stay in constant use when the car is driving. To ensure that you are never stuck in the middle of the road, you should take good care of your car. It does not matter whether you brought a new car or a previously owned vehicle, you should follow regular car maintenance schedule.
Car Maintenance checklist
A basic car maintenance check list will include many items. Some of the things to be checked before you embark on your journey should include, but not limited to the following:
- Checking that the brakes are fully functional
- Checking lamps for any fused or non-operational lights
- Ensuring that car air pressure is at the right levels
- Checking that there are no engine warning lights
- Making sure all fluids including coolant and engine oil are at right levels
- Ensuring there are no unexpected engine noises
Various Items Checked During a Car Maintenance Schedule
- Tyres: You should ensure that tyres are maintained at right levels defined by tyre manufacturers. Maintaining right tyre pressure not only ensures that you do not get flat tyre in the middle of the road, but it also helps in getting better fuel mileage. You also need to think about weather, as during summer, air inside the tyres will expand, so you may want to keep a bit lower pressure. If you are living in a mountain location where there can be heavy snow, you may want to invest in special winter tyres.
- Fluids: There are multiple fluids used in the car, namely brake fluid, engine oil, battery water, power steering fluid, engine coolant, and windscreen washer fluid. You need to ensure that all these fluids are checked for levels and topped up or replaced at regular intervals. This will ensure that your engine is running on top capacity.
- Filters: There are many filters in the car, like fuel filter, air filter, oil filter, and cabin filter. All these filters need timely cleaning and replacement, and if they are not replaced on time, it will lead to chocked machines and unhealthy air within the car cabin.
- Fuel filter: This filter removes impurities coming in the fuel and helps improve the mileage and long life of the engine. Air filter ensures that air coming in the engine is clean, thus producing maximum power through right amount of oxygen and fuel. Oil filter does not allow impurities to settle down in the oil, thus ensuring better performance. They filter the air coming in the cabin, so that you get to breathe cleaner air free from pollutants and bacteria.
5.Battery: Battery takes care of ignition in the engine and all electrical items in the car, which now a days are increasing every day. You need to check on regular basis that battery terminals are not getting corroded. You also need to fill distilled water up to defined levels to ensure right electrolyte process.
6.Cleaning: You need to ensure that your car is being cleaned on a regular basis, especially if you park your car under the trees. Bird droppings and some fruits may leave marks on the car exterior and damage your paint job. Like exterior cleaning, interior cleaning is also a must and should be done on a regular basis to remove any food particles or smoke and residual smells.
Many things described above can be done at home. You can invest some time on holidays, but make sure you use right tools to do a thorough checking. But at the same time, remember that many things in car maintenance will need the expert hands of a qualified mechanic, and it will pay in the longer run to get your car professionally serviced at regular intervals.
Tags: a Recipe for a Long Service Life, Regular Car Maintenance
