Helpful Hints

CAR CARE TIPS

Cost of Owning and Operating a Vehicle has Increased – Click Below to Read more about this in a recent Article.

( Download PDF – Cost of Owning and Operating a Vehicle )

 

WHY PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE?

I would like to share a word with you that we sometimes share with clients who are reluctant to follow a maintenance program for their vehicle(s).

How can you tell if you’re on the “Breakdown Maintenance Program”? You may find yourself saying things such as “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, “My dad said that none of this is necessary”, “You’re just selling me things I don’t need” or “I’ve never done any of this on my old cars.”

If so, you have been duped into believing that the cars of today are the same as those of yesterday. But nothing can be further from the truth. Part of our job is to provide with enough information to allow you to make an informed decision regarding your vehicle maintenance. Preventative maintenance always saves you money.

Here are a few facts . . .

There are at least 30,000 parts on the average new car and over 5000 of them move. All moving parts require a clean source of lubricating oils, coolant or greases along with filters set in place to catch harmful materials. In addition, we have electronic parts that can be affected by poor maintenance habits. The simplest of new cars have more computing power than the Apollo Moon Lander. In fact, you could get to the moon with just 1/10th the computing power found on the modern car! Today’s electronics are so sophisticated that cars may run will even when there are serious failures in progress. The systems have enough authority to mask developing problems. By the time you have a detectable malfunction, one that you can feel or sense, you may have damaged expensive parts. The only outward indication the driver may get is a warning lamp on the dash.

Poor maintenance practices can force electronics to work overtime, or carry excess current to compensate for worn out spark plugs, clogged filters, etc. Continuous operation in overtime builds heat in electronic components which leads to what engineers call “exceeding the duty cycle.” You can guess what happens next, premature failure. Neglecting maintenance is a good way to force a car into breakdown mode, early and often.

Our preventative maintenance program is a list of procedures that we’ve developed over 30 years of servicing and fixing the cars of those unfortunate folks who insist on remaining on the “Breakdown Maintenance Program.”

Preventative maintenance involves replacing filters and those hard working fluids on a routine schedule to keep the expensive parts they protect from meeting an untimely end.

In the final analysis it’s you choice. Preventative maintenance is optional. We won’t try to coerce you into saving money by caring for your car.

You can choose to do preventative maintenance on a timetable that you control or you can wait until your car breaks unexpectedly, leaving you stranded without transportation and a potentially large repair bill.

In either case, we’ll be happy to help in any way we can.