Preventative maintenance is a phrase that is not a buzzword, but definitely should be. It should be a buzzword because it is one of the best ways to both save money and seize control of what happens with your car. It is not a buzzword for the exact same reasons; most car manufacturers do not want you to have control.
That is what motivated us at Gulf Breeze Automotive in Gulf Breeze FL to make this guide. This will be a short introduction to preventative maintenance. It will include what it is, how to do it, and when. And of course, how much money you can save by doing it.
What is Preventative Maintenance?
Preventative maintenance is the act of doing small maintenance tasks on your car now in order to prevent big problems from developing later on. It makes sense intuitively, liking eating your vegetables so your body can be healthy. But like eating vegetables, the long-term health benefits require some short-term discomfort.
How to Practice Preventative Maintenance
Performing preventative maintenance comes in three flavors: There is the kind you do yourself, the kind you have a mechanic do for you, and the kind you let your car do. In the first case, you are replacing and maintaining your car’s parts. In the second, you are having a mechanic do that with more complicated parts.
In the last case, you are driving your car differently. All three are important, as there are small things you can do on your own, big things you need an expert to do, and then things which are so small that you let your car do them for you.
The things you can do on your own are things like replacing filters and changing fluids. The things a mechanic has to do for you are more complex, like rotating tires and aligning breaks. And then finally, the things you let your car do have to do with how you drive it. Namely, not going too fast and using little electricity.
When can you (and When Should you) Practice Preventative Maintenance?
You can practice preventative maintenance as frequently as you would like, but it really only needs to be done once a month. The minimum effort you can put in is doing it once every three months. At that point, you are basically doing a normal amount of maintenance on your car. There are ways to make this more exact though.
Most car parts have an exact mileage at which they should be maintained. Air filters, for instance, are ideally changed out every fifteen thousand miles that you drive. Now, the ideal amount of time a part spends without being changed is called “ideal” for a reason: In practice, it can be hard to change it out as soon as you need to.
But if you want to prevent those parts from becoming problems, then you can at least use those guidelines to figure out when it is time to find the time. Your car’s owner’s manual will likely contain more information.
That is essentially the crux of preventative maintenance: Knowing what it is, how to do it, and when.