Car maintenance Tips

Maintenance Tip 1 – Replace Your Filters On Time Every Time

Constant replacing of filter in your vehicle is one of the most outstanding ways of guaranteeing it endures quite a while.

Each of these is accountable for eliminating impurities before they forge ahead to hurt. Over the long haul, these particles will develop in channels, and you’ll have to supplant them, or they’ll become obstructed.

A portion of these incorporate the accompanying:

Fuel filter (replace every 30,000 miles)
Engine air filter (replace every 15,000-30,000 miles)
Cabin air filter (replace every 15,000-20,000 miles)
Engine oil filter (replace every 3-months or 3,000 miles)
Emission filter (replace every 100,000 miles)
Overlooking any of these can prompt wrecking outcomes. Take your oil channel, for example, which keeps things like soil, residue, and metallic particles from arriving at your motor. These pollutants can incorporate up in your oil and transform it into ooze, which your motor doesn’t adapt well to.

At the point when this occurs, your motor needs to work harder, which can make it overheat. At the point when a motor overheats, it is more likely to develop a head gasket or a broke block, which are exorbitant fixes that are best kept away from.

Maintenance Tip 2 – Ensure Your Tires Have Enough Tread And Are Properly Inflated

The main point of contact our vehicles have with the street is the tires, hence, keeping them with everything looking great ought to be vital. The main thing to look for is how much track they have, and the second is that they have sufficient air in them.

Tire track fills a few needs, the first being to grip the street to guarantee you have sufficient footing to remain on it. At the point when your track is low, wet or frigid circumstances are probably going to send you into the trench.

There’s likewise the opportunity that you run out of track, which expands the possibilities having a blowout. Fortunately, most tires highlight worked in wear bars, which are little markers that sit between the track designs. On the off chance that you notice they’re almost gone, now is the ideal time to get another arrangement of tires.

The subsequent thing track does is it fills in as a channel for water to course through. Bare tires with restricted proceed left are bound to disregard water instead of through it. At the point when this occurs, you’re more powerless to hydroplaning, which brings about a deficiency of foothold that can be very perilous.

Maintenance Tip 3 – Change Your Oil Regularly

A straightforward method for understanding the reason behind oil is to rub your hands together rapidly. You’ll see they begin to get hot, which occurs because of erosion. Presently, wet your hands and do exactly the same thing. Because of being greased up, the heat that is produced is fundamentally less.

Presently take your motor, which has a perpetual number of moving parts, all of which make erosion. Without oil, it would overheat, which makes it wear quicker as well as can prompt critical issues also.

As oil cycle through your engine, it gets little particles of metal, as well as any trash that might have made it past the oil channel. This makes it thicken and obscure, which makes it less successful as an oil.

How frequently would it be advisable for you to change your oil? The brilliant rule used to be to change it each 3,000 miles, however, with fresher vehicles, this is more like 10,000 miles. Make certain to counsel your manual to figure out what sort of oil your model purposes.

Maintenance Tip 4 – Protect Your Paintwork With A Coat Of Wax

Car wax basically serves as a buffer between the outside world and the surface of your car. It protects the paint from things like scratches and UV rays. As well as acidic residues like road grime and bird droppings.

Wax goes on top of the clearcoat, it’s made of a mixture of different waxes, oils, and polymers. It comes in either paste or liquid form, and once it dries, it solidifies. Keeping your car waxed will help ensure the paint stays looking new, which protects its resale value down the line.

Over time, car wax will fade, meaning the layer of protection it offers will thin. How often should you wax your car? Experts suggest applying a new coat every 3-months or so, or at least twice per year.

Maintenance Tip 5 – Don’t Let Mold Take Hold

If you’ve ever left a jug of milk sitting in your fridge for too long, or have seen a green/blue residue on a loaf of bread, then you’ve already dealt with mold. As you might expect, it’s a good idea to keep this from happening to the interior of your car.

What causes mold to form? Damp conditions. For this reason, you want to do everything you can to prevent excess moisture from entering the cabin. A few ways to do this include adding floor mats (rubber or plastic is best), placing wet items in a cargo tray, and kicking off wet shoes before getting in.

Mold not only creates an odd odor that devastates resale value, but it can also be harmful to breathe. Thankfully, cleaning your interior with an automotive specialty shampoo should take care of the issue.

Maintenance Tip 6 – Rotate And Balance Your Tires

As you drive, your tires create friction as they move across the pavement, which causes them to wear down. Commonly, your front tires will wear quicker than the rear. This happens due to them carrying the weight of the engine, as well as from constant turning. There’s also the chance that they wear unevenly, meaning from the outside in or vice versa.

Thankfully, by rotating and balancing them, you’re able to distribute the wear more evenly. The former simply means to swap them from one wheel to the next. The latter means to reposition them to ensure that no single area receives more weight than another.

Regardless of how much tread you have left, be sure to swap your tires out with a new set every few years. The last thing you want is to risk a blowout due to them drying out.

Maintenance Tip 7 – Swap Out Aged Wipers And Clean Your Windshield

Car windshield wiper — The close up of car windshield wiper

Here’s an easy one – replace your wipers every 3-6 months. Why? Because worn wiper blades are less capable of clearing your windshield. One of the best ways to maintain your car is to ensure you’re never in an accident, and visibility is a crucial factor in this.

Thankfully, your manual will mention which wipers are best for your model.

You should also regularly clean your windshield. Again, visibility is the focus here. But there’s also scratches to worry about when your wipers pass over dust and dirt.

Maintenance Tip 8 – Be Mindful Of Your Belts

As your crankshaft rotates, it creates power, which is delivered to the various components of your engine via different belts. Some of these include the timing belt, the power steering belt, the serpentine belt, and the AC compressor belt. Should any of them break, that component will effectively become crippled (and possibly your car).

Most belts have a lifespan of between 50,000 to 100,000 miles thanks to their rubber composition. They’re also rather affordable to swap out, like a serpentine belt.

Maintenance Tip 9 – Don’t Ignore Your Brakes

There are 3 main components of a modern disc braking system, these include the pads, calipers, and rotors. When you press the pedal, it causes the calipers to squeeze the pads against the rotors, which creates friction and brings your vehicle to a stop.

As you might have noticed from previous car maintenance tips, when friction is made, it causes the various components in your car to wear out. Brake pads typically last for between 25,000 to 65,000 miles, rotors for 30,000 to 70,000 miles, and calipers for about 10-years or 75,000 to 100,000 miles.

Ignoring any of these essential items will result in you having reduced stopping power. Which, as you might have guessed, is a tremendous hazard in an emergency situation.

Maintenance Tip #10 – Drive Less Aggressively

Here’s one of the most effective car maintenance tips you can follow – drive less aggressively. This relates to nearly all aspects of your vehicle. Including the engine, brakes, transmission, suspension system, and fuel economy.

Take how fast you accelerate, for instance. If your goal is to reach 60-mph, there’s no reason you have to try and break a speed record. The further down you press the gas pedal, the higher the RPMs climb, meaning the harder your engine has to work.

As for your brakes, the harder you press the brake pedal, the more force that’s applied to the rotor, which means more friction. The more there is, the faster your braking system will wear out.

How well a vehicle runs once it hits 100,000 miles is mainly influenced by how hard those miles have been. If your goal is to keep your car running strong for years to come, then slow it down and enjoy the view.

Maintenance Tip 11 – Condition Leather Seats

There’s not much worse than having a nice car, opening the door, and finding leather seats that are all torn up. Not only does this look bad, but it also means a substantial hit for the resale value of your car.

Most leather seats are split-grain, meaning the surface is leather, and it’s backed by cloth. Using the same principle as face crème, lip balm, or hand crème, if you don’t condition it, it’s more susceptible to the elements. Meaning it will eventually dry out, crack, or split.

Thankfully, you can prolong the life of leather seats by conditioning them every 3-months or so. You should start by vacuuming them, wiping them down with a leather cleaner, and then apply the conditioner.

Maintenance Tip 12– Practice Weekly Washes

Summer Car Washing. Cleaning Car Using High Pressure Water.

Washing your car once per week is one of the most crucial car maintenance tips you can practice. Why? Because when you let things like dirt, dust, bird droppings, or tree sap sit, they will eat away at your clear coat.

Take bird droppings, for instance. You might not have known, but they’re highly acidic. If they sit for too long, they’ll eat away at the clearcoat and damage your paint. The same goes for dust and dirt, if you don’t regularly wash them away, they’ll create surface scratches that are likely to reach beyond the clear coat.

If you take two, 10-year old cars, and put them side by side. One that’s been washed regularly, and one that’s been neglected. You’d be amazed at the difference. When it comes time to sell your car, buyers will notice this too and will be more likely to pay top dollar for one that’s in decent

Maintenance Tip 13 – Repair Scratches Or Chips Right Away

The surface of your car looks like this: first, there’s the bare metal, plastic, or fiberglass. This base layer is coated in a primer to seal off any imperfections. Then comes the paint, followed by a clearcoat meant to protect it.

If you end up with a scratch or a chip, depending on how deep it is, it’s likely to go beyond your clear coat and damage the paint or metal underneath. When the metal is exposed, it’s more susceptible to oxidation, which leads to rust.htt

Thankfully, finding a scratch or chip doesn’t mean an expensive fix, in fact, you can repair most scratches and even deep scratches yourself

Maintenance Tip 14 – Don’t Smoke In The Cabin

Smoking inside your car is one of the fastest ways to lower its value. Why? Because the smell of smoke is very tough to get rid of, and most buyers won’t even look at a car if it’s been smoked in. Additionally, no matter how careful you are, you almost always end up with a burn hole.

The solution? If you’re going to smoke, avoid doing so in the cabin. Thankfully, if your car does smell of cigarette smoke.