For Your Wallet’s Sake, Take Care Of Your Car
There are plenty of good reasons to put effort into ensuring your car gets the love, care, and repair that it deserves. For one, your life directly depends on it. Secondly, you have a legal obligation to ensure that it’s road-friendly. But somewhere in that list of priorities is the question of the financial practicality of taking care of it, as well. How you do or don’t care for your vehicle can massively affect your budget. Here, we’re going to look at how you help retain its value through care and repair, as well as how you cut the costs of being a responsible car owner.
Make reliability a key concern
When you’re talking about buying a car that’s cheaper to repair and maintain, one that will last longer with less work, then you’re talking about reliability. You might believe that reliability is hard to boil down to a metric that you can use to measure which car you should buy, but reliabilityindex.com has done a surprisingly good job of it. There are sites that score cars based on overall reliability, but also highlight the particular faults you can expect or parts most likely to fail first, so you can plan repairs and replacements in future, too
If buying used, buy a certain kind of used
To ensure that reliability, you might think that it’s essential that you buy a brand-new car when possible. However, in the name of keeping cost-effective, it’s not as hard to find reliable, well-maintained cars on the used market as you might believe. The key words you need to look out for are “certified pre-owned.” That means the cars have been owned before (causing a significant drop from their new retail price), but that they have been maintained and repaired to the manufacturer’s standards. It’s more expensive than buying any old used car, but it also has more of a guarantee of quality with it.
Expect those repairs
As mentioned, when you’re choosing a car, you can use the net to find out which parts are most likely to fail you first. When you know what car you want, do what research you can on its reliability and try to get some information on how those repairs might cost you. These figures can be used to create a budget for future car maintenance and repair. Check out sites like thenest.com that can help you put together a plan to have money ready in advance for your repairs. This means that when the inevitable does happen, you have the cash on hand, rather than having to dip into your credit which ends up costing you more in the long run.
Pay attention to your vehicle
Naturally, the sooner you get your car checked out when you believe something is wrong with it, the better it is for the car. It’s also much better for your wallet. A faulty engine is not only going to get faultier as time goes on, but it can also cause damage to the subsystems of the car that it’s connected to, such as the transmission. The longer you leave an issue, the more expensive and complicated it is likely to get. If you’re uncertain of when a car is in need of a trip to the mechanic, then you should learn what warning signs to keep an eye out for. This includes not just the dashboard warning lights but keeping an ear out for any new noises and a nose out for particular smells, as well.
Choose the right partner
The ratio of untrustworthy mechanics to decent ones isn’t as hopeless as some people might have you believe. Most are willing to give customers a fair service, but a few rotten apples really do spoil the whole bunch in this case, so it pays to ensure you’re getting a mechanic you can trust. Looking at reviews online, checking that they’re certified, and looking at clients can help you see whether or not they really provide the quality service they promise as shown at artofmanliness.com. If, for instance, they have commercial or business clients, it’s a good sign that they offer cost-effective services. That said, make sure you get a fully transparent, detailed quote on any work you pay for.
Stick to the logbook
If you want to make sure that your car is in the absolute top condition and that it’s going to retain as much of its value as possible, then there’s nothing as important as sticking to the repair and maintenance schedule as laid out by the manufacturer. This is also known as the logbook and is a point of reference for both you and the mechanic. What’s more, when it comes time to sell the car, many buyers will expect you to have that logbook on hand to prove that you’ve given the car they care it deserves. If you don’t have it filled in, then you’re not likely to get as much for the vehicle as you should even if you’ve been dedicated to keeping it in good condition.
Source your own replacements
Even good garages can add on those costs and one of the ways they might do that is by sourcing brand new replacements directly from the manufacturer. It ensures you get the best quality of replacements, but what if you could get that for all the cheaper? Finding your own replacement engines, transmissions, and parts with sites like sircarpart.com allows you to tap into a much wider market of used replacements. You can get access to grade A parts for a lot less, each of them with a warranty so you’re secured if they don’t turn out to be as high-quality as you anticipate. It can be nearly as good but nowhere near as expensive as buying brand new replacement parts.
Make timely changes
Your logbook is going to detail a lot of the regular maintenance you should do, but for the sake of cost-effectiveness, there are a few regular replacements worth making a little more often. For one, you have to make sure that you change the oil as well as the oil filter regularly. Oil is the most important factor in overall car longevity. Without fresh, high-quality oil, there’s nothing to lubricate the parts under the hood, meaning they generate more heat and friction, causing them to wear down faster and even to potentially catch fire. Make sure that you’re using the manufacturer’s recommended oil type when you’re buying, as well.
Do more of your own repairs
If you’re not confident that you can do a good job of any repair or replacement, then you should probably let the mechanic take care of it. However, in the meantime, you should be practicing and doing what you can to sharpen those repair skills. You might even be able to find a car repair course near you that can teach you well beyond the basics of changing spark plugs and brake pads. Here, we outline a few DIY repairs you can learn yourself, including changing the battery, repairing a leak in the head gasket, and changing a tire. The more you can do by yourself, the less often you need to rely on (and pay) a mechanic.
Stop it from aging
Beyond the standard repair and interior maintenance, there’s a lot you can do to prevent wear and tear across the vehicle inside and out, as shown at autoguide.com. This includes protecting it from the weather, whether that means keeping it in the garage if it’s snowing or using a UV protective cover to stop the sun from bleaching the interior. The more exposed you leave your car, the more open it is to decreased battery life, damage to the body, the spread of rust, and much more. Keeping it clean is just as important to its longevity, especially if you tend to drive in a way that kicks up plenty of dust and dirt.
Drive with care
If you really want your car to live as long as possible and to cost as little in repairs as it can, then you also have to look at your driving habits. Letting your car warm up by driving gently to begin with ensures the thorough distribution of oil to lubricate it. Other good practices are being steadier and more consistent in both your acceleration and braking. Going too hard can cause wear and tear to build on the engine and the brake pads. Most people don’t mean to drive quite as hard as they do, but rather they fail to remain calm either because of difficult drivers on the road or because they are in a hurry. Scheduling the trip ahead well in advance and remaining calm on the road can make it easier to maintain better driving habits.
The more effort you’re willing to put in, the more you can save on the costs of maintenance and repair. From being a savvier customer of dealerships, garages, and replacement parts to simply being more careful to prevent the habits that cause auto damage, you can save a lot and retain a lot more value, too.