How to Save Money on Car Maintenance

Owning a car these days is almost mandatory. From daily commuting to rather long road trips or helping a friend move, there are countless ways to use your car every day. Although we wish this was possible, nothing lasts forever and you won’t be able to avoid expenses when your car breaks down. You don’t have to know a lot about cars as long as you keep these tips in mind as you maintain your car.

Reduce the possibility of breakdown to a minimum. An apple a day keeps the doctor away, and so does changing fluids keep the mechanics from ripping you off. Car fluids and filters, most commonly oil, oil filters and air filters, prevent your car from accumulating dust, “oil boogers” and other materials from damaging your main car parts. A simple look under the hood, looking through all the accessible caps and their fluid levels can save you from an engine breakdown. If you want to go a step further, most owner’s manuals provide you with an estimate for a laundry list of added maintenance services. Also a quick google search can tell you what and when you should change these parts. The common changes are as follows: oil and oil filter replacement, air filter, cabin air filter, brake fluid, engine coolant, fuel filter and of course brakes themselves and tires. If you’re planning to ride your vehicle for 2-3 years, one replacement of all the things listed above is enough, with the exception of oil and oil filter which should be changed approximately each 10,000 miles. Although this might scare you off at first glance, but don’t worry as everything listed is very easy to do yourself and can save you a lot of your hard-earned cash.

Change it yourself – it’s easy.  Most of the decent car part shops offer incredible help for your car maintenance. All you have to know is your car birthday, its engine specifications and, of course, the car part you want to change. Referring to owners will be of great help here since you never want to change the wrong fluids. Most of the jobs are really simple – get the side of the car on a curb, get under it, unscrew a few bolts, replace the fluid and it’s done. We’ve encountered plenty of Youtube videos, even for specific car makes, so there are a lot of help out there for your yearly fluid maintenance. Since we’re talking about saving money, a good way to do that is to cheap out on simple parts. An air filter, even though it’s critical for a car, doesn’t really get worse as the price goes down – this is not rocket science. Most of the fluids are also overpriced if you’re using your car for daily commuting. Also, if you live somewhere where the water never freezes, you don’t really need windshield water fluid  – just replace it with water. So if you’re really keen on saving money on car maintenance, get yourself a copy of your car’s owners manual and start fixing it yourself – you will be surprised how simple it actually is and no mechanic will be able to rip you off once you drive in your Bentley a few years later.