Easy to do Car Maintenance You Can Do at Home
If you treat your car right, it will take care of you. This is a saying that more car owners should learn to adopt, especially if you managed to get your car through a car financing service. The first step in taking care of your car is finding out how to diagnose and treat small problems before they become a costlier problem. But just how do you do that?
Preventive Maintenance
Regular maintenance work should be the second most important thing you should learn after driver’s ed. Being knowledgeable about a car and its interior workings is an excellent foundation for helping your car work for you for years to come.
To help you get started, we have compiled a few easy to do maintenance you can try at home:
Replace Wiper Blades
One of the things you can do to take care of your vehicle is changing the wiper blades. Depending on how often it’s used, and how exposed it is to the elements, wiper blades are usually good for about six months before you need to get new ones. All you have to do is check the box the new wipers come with, and follow the illustrated instructions and in less than ten minutes, you have yourself a new set of wipers.
Change Headlight and Taillights
Faulty taillights and headlights can bring you some unwanted attention from the law. So, if you notice your lights are out, replace them as soon as you can. Doing so is as easy as screwing in a light bulb in your bedroom. The only difference is that you need some tools to get this job done right.
Replacing Spark plugs
Spark plugs play an essential role in your car’s engine. What it does is that it is plugged in to connect to the ignition coil where it sparks the fuel to get everything up and running. Because of its role, it is vital to replace it every 30,000km or so. But depending on your vehicle, sometimes your engine doesn’t even require you to change it. But if it does, then you will need some special tools and some skill to go with it.
Tyre Rotation
The tyres of your car are in direct contact with the ground, which is why it is one of the fastest parts of your vehicle to get worn out. To ensure that all the tyres age at the same speed, it is important to rotate them every few thousand kilometres or so. What you can do is swap out the back tyres and replace them with the front tyres, that way they get the same wear and tear as the others.
Changing a Dead Battery
Car batteries are often built to last, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to replace the one that is currently powering your vehicle. Typically, car batteries can last up to three years with no problem.
However, the older your car battery gets, the more unreliable it becomes. When you feel like your car’s battery is nearing the end of its life, you can purchase a new one and replace it yourself. It might take some time to get through the cables and all, but once you’ve cleared the path, it’s pretty much straightforward.
The best part is that you can use this opportunity to clean out parts of your car’s engine to keep it looking and running well.
These are just a few of the maintenance jobs you can do for yourself without needing to take your car out to the mechanic. But of course, you will also want to take it to the mechanic for its periodic tune-up to make sure that everything significant is nipped in the bud before anything happens.