Top Preventative Maintenance Tips for Your Car

Keeping a car on the road can be an expensive game at the best of times. Unfortunately alongside all the necessary costs such as fuel, tax, insurance and consumables, there are almost always the unexpected costs to compound your budgetary challenges. A broken headlight, a scratch in the paintwork, a flat tyre or a faulty battery can spring up out of the blue sometimes and can leave you unexpectedly out of pocket. The good news is that almost all of these issues can be prevented from happening (for the most part) with a little preventative maintenance.

In this article, we’ll take a look at a few of the simple ways you can prevent expensive problems arising yourself.

Performing your own simple car inspection

Every so often you should run through all the easy to perform basics to ensure that everything is as it should be. Do a circuit of your car lights and make sure they all operate correctly. Take a quick drive around the block, radio off, and listen for any unusual noises and try to identify where they might be coming from. If anything sounds odd, don’t ignore it.

Check your tyre pressure to make sure they are all within the recommended levels for your vehicle. You can do this at a gas station or using a simple DIY pressure gauge. Also keep an eye on your tyre treads to make sure they are still within the legal and safety limits. Good tyre health on your car can improve mileage efficiency; poor tyre pressure can cost you more money in gas and can inhibit safety.

Keep your exterior in perfect condition

Cleaning your car is one thing and it’s very important for ensuring it always looks fantastic, but did you know that regular cleaning is also a crucial preventative maintenance strategy for preventing corrosion to your paintwork and bodywork? Probably the most effective piece of preventative maintenance you can invest in for your cars paintwork is to apply a sealant.

There are various different types of sealants that go further than the typical wax finishes (that only last a few weeks at the most) and can keep your car protected for a year or more, up to ten years in the case of some of the high spec ceramic coatings you can get these days. Our advice would be to avoid going it alone, this is definitely a specialist job and you should always defer to a specialist; the team at proficient-x.com are a great example.

Keep an eye on your fluids

Almost all the fluid levels in your car are crucially important but at the same time, easy to check and simple to resolve yourself. You should never really need to pay someone else to deal with your fluid levels. Everything from your windscreen washer fluids, oil levels and brake fluids are fairly straightforward to identify in most vehicles. Take the time to explore your cars user manual for information on where each tank can be found but generally, they are well marked in most modern cars anyway. You’ll probably find a dipstick you can retract to check your oil levels and clear tanks for coolants so you can check levels.

When replacing any fluids in your car don’t forget to observe under the hood and under the front of the car for a few minutes afterwards to check for any potential leaks.