Simple Car Maintenance Tips That Will Help Your Car Last Longer

Cars are not designed to run indefinitely without periodic car maintenance. If you wait until problems occur, you'll probably end up damaging your car and paying a lot more than if you take care of your car on a regular basis. By doing these simple maintenance tasks, you can expect to get years of service out of your car.

1. Change the oil according to the manufacturer's recommended car maintenance schedule. For most vehicles, this is every 3,750 miles or every three months, whichever comes first. Changing the oil ensures that your engine oil is clean and at the right levels, which helps the engine keep running smoothly.

2. Check the radiator to ensure it is full and have a professional check the level of anti-freeze in your cooling system. If it overheats, this can cause significant damage that you could have avoided with some basic cooling system maintenance.

3. Inspect your car on a regular basis, and take the time to learn what to look for. The gauges can clue you in that there's a problem your mechanic should look at. Repairing a chipped window before it turns into a huge crack is a lot less expensive than replacing the entire windshield and a lot less hassle as well.

4. Go to the same mechanic for all of your work, even if it's the most basic things. By going to a single mechanic, he'll notice things you may not about your car and can give you car maintenance advice that a mechanic seeing it for the first time may miss.

5. Clean your car, inside and out, on a regular basis. Allowing dirt and grime to sit on your vehicle can damage it, causing the upholstery to wear out faster or the paint to start chipping. If possible, park your car in a garage or under a carport to keep it dry and help prevent rust.

6. Check your tire pressure with a pressure gauge and use a pump to fill them to the correct levels. This will help them to wear more evenly, and it also helps with increasing your gas mileage. When the weather changes is an important time to check the air pressure since temperature does affect air pressure.

Although you have to pay for car maintenance, these small costs are much easier on your budget than the big ones you'll have to pay if you neglect your car. Replacing major systems is expensive, as is getting an entirely new car if yours breaks down beyond reasonable repair sooner than it would have if you had taken care of it.

By finding the right car maintenance service, you can potentially save yourself thousands of dollars in the long run. Because of the great service he always receives, Russel Spinella uses Brakes Plus as his go to auto repair shop.