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When I was a 16-year-old teenager who got my driver’s license for the first time, I was taught a few rules of car maintenance. I was taught a few basic things to ensure that the car I purchased was well taken care of. As I venture into being the parent of an almost 16-year-old child, I am trying to recall what things were taught to me about maintaining your car. Since Cars.com asked me to write a post, I figured this would be the perfect time to share a few tips for maintaining your car. Here are some things that I have always known you should do to ensure that your car is well maintained, these are especially important if you buy older cars for your teenager.
Tips for Maintaining Your Car
- Check the Fluids – It’s important to always check your oil, coolant fluid, power steering fluid, brake fluid and occasionally your transmission fluid. Being on top of any possible leaks that your car has will allow you to know when a leak occurs before it gets too bad.
- Check Tire Pressure – Make sure that your tire pressure is always where it should be based on the rating of your tires, this helps alleviate extra wear and tear as well as keep gas mileage good.
- Check the Air Filter – another one that many car owners forget to look for when it comes to maintaining your car is the air filter. Find out where your air filter is and check it to ensure it gets replaced when it’s too dirty.
- Wash your Car – here in New England, we need to make sure our cars stay washed often because our winter season leaves the car in a rough shape underneath. Our salts they put on the roads during winter season eats away at your vehicle.
- Keep it Clean – there’s nothing worse than driving around with a messy car. You’ll want to learn how to manage a messy car because it just looks better, plus it helps you to see if any water leaks happen from windows or such when you can actually see your vehicle’s insides.
Another good tip for keeping your car in tip-top shape is to look for junk car parts at a car junkyard near you. There are many junk car yards that provide reliable parts for your vehicle whenever something breaks but you don’t want to replace it at brand new pricing.
Each of these tips are vitally important in ensuring that you are able to have a long-lasting car. It’s important to use my tips wisely and perhaps share them with your teenage driver. It’s never too late to start practicing good maintenance skills with your car.
My son is supposed to maintain my car since he drives it more than me. It looks like this will help both of us keep up with what is vital to keeping my car running.
I have no idea about cars at all except how to fill up the gas tank. This is a great list that I will have to keep in mind!
Thank you for these reminders. We must be responsible car owners and keep our vehicles in tip top shape. This would give us that peace of mind that once we get behind the wheel, we know our vehicles are road worthy.
So many helpful tips!!! I need to get better about checking my tires! I’ve had so many tire issues and they could be avoided if I just regularly checked on them!
These are so helpful! My dad (and when I got married, my spouse) usually take care of car-related stuff but it’s good to know these too.
Checking your tire pressure is so important. I had a friend who had a tire explode on the highway and it was such a scary experience.
Tire pressure and oil are definitely must-checks before any car trip! A membership with AAA is also a fine idea to consider just in case you find yourself in a jam.
Im the worst about checking my tires until the lights come on. Thanks for the tips and reminders!