If you’re living in Renton, taking your car in for routine maintenance can seem like a hassle and can quickly get pushed to the bottom of your “to-do” list. After all, if there’s nothing obviously wrong with it, why get it fixed? While this is a nice sentiment, the truth is that having regular maintenance done on your car now saves you time and money in the long run. Your car is an incredible and complex feat of engineering; when one thing is off, it can effect everything else, too.
Regular maintenance helps you avoid huge bills, save at the pump, and keeps your vehicle running smoothly for as long as possible. Here’s our explanation of how exactly routine maintenance saves you money, time, and tears.
No Emergency Break Downs
While emergencies can happen at any time, routine maintenance can help prevent minor issues from escalating into major break downs.
The point of getting regular work done on your car is to catch things before they become problematic. When you put off maintenance, subtle things that the average driver doesn’t check can go unseen and untreated. This creates a snowball effect, letting things get bigger and bigger and worse and worse until suddenly your car stops working altogether. Major breakdowns like this are more than just inconvenient, they’re exponentially more expensive than routine maintenance checks.
Routine maintenance isn’t just for the big things. Something as simple as not replacing your wiper blades can be detrimental under the right (wrong) conditions.
Prevent Repairs
Routine maintenance helps to curb the need for repairs. Staying on top of maintenance and service schedules helps keep your vehicle in tip-top shape.
For example, let’s say your air filter hasn’t been changed in 15,000 miles and you don’t go in for routine maintenance. You keep pushing it and don’t replace your air filter. Because of this, your fuel slowly becomes more and more polluted since the air being taken in isn’t filtered. Your fuel economy begins to tank, and over time your engine fails completely. This situation could easily be avoided if you had opted to follow up with routine maintenance.
Better Fuel Economy
When you miss maintenance schedules, you are forcing your car to perform in unideal conditions. Like with the example of the air filter above, this can hamper your fuel economy, costing you more at the pump more often.
What Routine Maintenance Means
Each car is different in its service timeline and maintenance schedule. Your owner’s manual will have specifics on when certain things should be serviced. Generally, there are 7 things that require regular maintenance:
This video has some great information on maintenance musts for your vehicle.
If you are in need of routine maintenance checks, come to Beetlesmith’s Valley Auto!
