Starting off as a new driver, you are taught how to drive and how to be cautious about driving; however, most people don’t learn how to properly take care of their vehicle.
When taking care of your vehicle you will always need to look further past the dashboard. You can’t rely on your ECU (electronic control unit) to tell you whether something is happening or not.
Before every drive, you need to take a quick walk around your vehicle. Make sure you have no flats or anything that is in the way that would cause damage to your vehicle.
Always keep track of your mileage. If you have an older vehicle, you need to know when to do an oil change. On average, you would want to do an oil change every 5,000-7,000 miles.
Senior Grant Swayngim said, “Oil changes are important because you don’t want your engine to explode.”
A lot of people tend to drive until they have no gas, always filling up at the last minute. However, this isn’t the best for your vehicle. The gas you get isn’t always pure and can have small little sediments in it. It can build up in the bottom of your gas tank. So when you drive until almost empty, you’re sucking all those small sediments into your gas filter, causing it to wear faster. Try to avoid driving your vehicle until empty, especially with older vehicles.
If you live in the more northern areas with snow, you should wash your car at least once a week with water. The people who service the roads use salt to melt the ice away on the roads. When you drive on the road, salt will get into your car and eat it away, causing it to rust rapidly. To try to prevent this from happening, you should rinse your car to try to get the salt off at least once a week or every two weeks.
Another important issue that your car won’t tell you, is the wear and tear you have on your vehicle’s tires. A lot of people neglect this and drive until the tires are balder than Steve Harvey. When a vehicle’s tires have no thread, it creates high risk and could cause you to crash from losing control, especially in the winter.
To tell if you have any more thread, you could insert a penny into your tire’s tread groove with Lincoln’s head upside down and facing you. If you can see all of Lincoln’s head, your tread depth is less than 2/32 inch and it’s time to replace your tires.
