Some Basic Tips To Help Keep Your Car Moving
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Always make sure your tires are properly inflated. Do a quick walk around your vehicle to do a visual inspection. The last thing you want is to discover you have a flat tire or that the spare is flat while you’re pulling the jack out of your trunk. It’s better to spend a dollars at the air pump to check your tire pressure and every few months to inflate your spare than to spend hundreds on a tow truck in your time of need. Always make sure your vehicles spare tire is inflated and visually in good condition.
Make sure to follow vehicle manufacturers specifications for oil changes. This is very important to keep your vehicle operating as designed. Missed oil changes hurt your wallet? Oil problems can be some of the costliest car maintenance issues to fix, since oil affects pretty much everything your car does. So please stay on schedule.
Make sure to keep your battery connections clean. Mix a little baking soda and water and simple pour it over the battery terminals, then rinse of after a minute. This will help keep the battery connections clean and help maintain proper charging.
Have your vehicle inspected regularly and replace the brake pads when needed. If you hear squeaking, grinding or feel a pulsation when braking get your car to the shop right away. Don't risk your safety or the safety of those around you. You should also replace your brake fluid about every 20k due to contamination from moisture among other things.
You vehicles cabin air filter is inside the passenger cabin and filters the air that you and your passengers breath. This can be very important, kore so if you or a passenger has asthma. It also helps your cars air conditioning system work properly by not restricting the airflow. We recommend that this filter be changed once a year or every 12k miles. More frequently when needed.
Check your windshield wipers often. Most wipers are only good for about 6 months. It can be frightening to get caught in a rain storm and find out that your wipers are terrible. We do not charge labor to install wiper blades, just the cost of the wiper itself.
We recommend rotating your tire every other oil change. It is important for getting the maximum life out of your expensive tires. We also check the tire pressures when we do rotations. We can help keep you on schedule.
In the Tucson area with our notoriously terrible roads, its a good idea to get an alignment at around 6 months if you travel or commute alot. Prices can vary depending upon whether its a 2 wheel or 4 wheel drive. But an alignment is still markedly cheaper than a new set of tires. We also check tires pressures when we do an alignment.
We suggest changing shocks and struts every 50k. More often when needed or if leaking. Few things will affect a vehicles ride quality as much as bad shocks and struts or bad tires. We check these during our regular courtesy inspection during services. Bad shocks and struts can cause severe premature wear to the tires, and can become a safety hazard if ignored.
Its smart maintenance to change your vehicles coolant every 3 years or 30k miles, no matter what vehicle recommendations are. If you don’t stay on top of changing your coolant, you run the risk of serious corrosion inside your car. Which can be very damaging. The coolant affects everything from the heater and air conditioner to the radiator and water pump. For something that impacts that much of your car’s overall health, you don’t want to skip or prolong service intervals for this. We see many vehicles with recommendation to change coolant at 100k or even 150k. What we see here in real life is that the coolant actually goes bad very quickly and starts to crystallize and clog the system or even cause leaks.
Spark plugs and a full tune ups on modern vehicles are very different than they once were. Spark plugs and associated item should be changed at 100k, maximum. Some vehicles much sooner. Putting this off will surely start to retard the performance of your engine and you will most likely see a decrease in fuel economy.
We will visually inspect your vehicles belts and hoses during regular services and advise you if they need to be changed. In this area, If your vehicle is equipped with a timing belt it should be changed every 60k to be safe. Our excessive heat is murder on these belts.
You should always check exterior lighting. I tell people in traffic almost daily that they have a burned out bulb. Have a friend of family member help you. We check vehicle lights during our services. Check your lights and avoid a fix it ticket.