A New Year is a time of renewal, an opportunity to achieve fresh goals. Most New Year’s resolutions are the usual suspects; join the gym, snag that elusive promotion, take your business to the next level. We tend to underestimate the importance of car maintenance in the accomplishment of these goals. An unreliable car won’t get you to any of these destinations.

Unfortunately, many people tend to think of car maintenance in the same way they think of the dentist; you only go when there’s a problem. With your vehicle that problem is usually a breakdown. You need a trusty vehicle to help you to get to the gym, that crucial meeting and, ultimately, your biggest year yet! That calls for car maintenance resolutions which will keep your vehicle in great working condition.

Car Maintenance Tips

The power of diagnostics

Ever seen vintage cars zipping past you on the road and wondered how they’ve survived the ages? The key to their longevity is consistent car maintenance. It’s a good idea to regularly head into your neighborhood car repair shop and have the mechanics take a look under the hood. This will help identify the potential for trouble before it becomes a full blown problem.

A trusted mechanic can also establish a car maintenance schedule for you; a calendar indicating when it’s necessary to do things like change essential fluids for the transmission, cooling systems and power steering. A thorough examination will not only ensure that you can count on your car when you most need it, but it will save you money in the long run, preventing small problems from becoming big, expensive ones. Never underestimate the power of diagnostics in keeping your wheels on the road.

Brake repair and replacements

Routine car maintenance can also help you keep tabs on the condition of your brakes. You certainly don’t want to make any compromises when it comes to safety on the road. Don’t wait until your brakes have become so noisy you can no longer ignore them.

With regularly scheduled visits to the car repair shop, you can get an honest assessment of how much life you have left on your brakes and when you should change them.

Lights and electrical components

You probably don’t spend much time driving behind your own car so a blown taillight often goes unnoticed for quite some time. Similarly, underperforming or malfunctioning headlamps might escape your attention. Apart from the inherent risks of driving at night with inadequate illumination, you don’t want to be in violation of the California traffic laws.

Regular car maintenance can catch extinguished bulbs and problematic headlamps. Who would you rather have break the news to you about your taillight, a mechanic, or a highway patrol officer?

Tires: rotate and inflate

Keeping your tires in serviceable condition is another one of those non-optional safety requirements of routine car maintenance. You want to be sure that your tires are inflated at the right pressures. Under inflation or over inflation can both undermine safety on the road.

You will also want to make sure that your tires are rotated when necessary. Every five to ten thousand miles you should swap your back tires with the front in order to extend their life.

You need a partner to help with your ambitions to take on the world in 2017. You’ve got the ambition, you’ve got the drive, now all you need is a reliable set of wheels in the driveway. If you are going to avoid break-downs on the road to success in the New Year then it’s time to adopt these car maintenance resolutions. Contact us and we can help you get started.