Don't Be a Car Maintenance Ignoramus. Learn What to Do Now!

Ignoring Routine Car Maintenance is the Main Cause of Large Repair Bills. Regular maintenance on your car can get to be a nuisance I freely admit. It takes time, fore-thought and is often hard to fit into our busy schedules. At one time or another, we've all most likely had at least one lack of car maintenance nightmare.

Hopefully we learned our lesson from that experience and realized the best way to get the most value possible out of the money we spend on our vehicles is to prolong their useful lives through proper maintenance.

Considering the average cost of a new car is over $20,000, any money you invest on parts and services that keep it in good working condition can save hundreds and even thousands of dollars per year.

With that in mind it's not difficult to justify spending a few hundred dollars a year on regular car maintenance items considering the true cost of buying a new car, (price of the car, sales tax, license, registration fees and insurance).

Don't make the mistake of over looking the safety aspect of maintaining your vehicle either. Especially if it's a higher mileage one. Failing brakes, for instance along with other safety related failures can be prevented by following sound car maintenance practices.

Most vehicle manufacturers only provide service guidelines for the first 100,000 miles. Many vehicle owners follow these guidelines until the warranty period is over. This can be anywhere from around 30,000 miles to 100,000 miles depending on the vehicle and particular item under warranty. After that, these routine maintenance procedures become hit or miss at best.

If you have over 100,000 miles on your car or truck and you want to prolong its life, I urge you to find a mechanic or service center you trust that can provide the important car maintentance services it will continue to need on a regular basis. Cars now days are designed to be able to run over 500,000 miles if properly cared for. Most people of course, never get close to that, but with proper care it is entirely within reason.

Hopefully that mechanic or car maintenance facility will have as part of their regular service, an inspection program in which they inspect every car that comes to them for service or repair. They would be looking for safety and reliability issues such as suspension parts that are worn out. When the inspection is completed they would give the customer a written report of the inspection results so they could make an informed decision as to what, when and where any suggested work is performed.

This reduces the need for expensive repairs later on and can prevent accidents caused by failing parts during the vehicle's daily operation. It's almost always less expensive to fix a problem when it first appears than to wait for it to get worse and cause further damage.

A couple of examples of this are 1) Detecting an air conditioning refrigerant leak before it leaks out and damages the AC compressor. It's a lot more expensive to replace the compressor than to do a leak check, fix the leak and re-charge the system with freon and 2) Performing regular inspections of the radiator and hoses so any beginning leaks or failures can be spotted and repaired before they turn into a major problem, such as damage from and overheated engine. Even something as simple as

checking the tires for damage and proper inflation is important. It's always better when you can prevent the problem in the first place by performing the proper preventive maintenance for each system on the vehicle.

The content of this website will pinpoint the parts and systems that most vehicles need to have regular maintenance performed on. It also contains information about how the various systems on today's vehicles interact. Just keep clicking through the navigation buttons and on-page links to find the information you are looking for. My goal is to make the task of finding the car care information you are looking for quick and easy.

Return from Car Maintenance to Ultimate Car Care Guide

Have You Been Left Out In The Cold From Car Maintenance Progcrastination?

What's the wost situation resulting from lack of car maintenance you've ever been in? Almost everyone's been in at least one. Sharing your's may help others avoid the same problem somewhere down the road.