How to Make Your Car Last for the Long Haul

Thanks to inflation and other things most of us cannot control, cars are more expensive than ever. Thankfully, there’s something you can control—taking care of your car to extend its life. Besides extending its life, you can reduce the possibility of being stranded due to a breakdown—and nobody has time for that! Here are some tips to add years to the life of your ride.

Lighten the load. Just like extra weight on your body can potentially cause illnesses that might reduce your life span, carrying too much weight in your car can reduce its life span because it puts extra strain on the engine. As if that’s not enough to make you carry less weight in your car, extra weight reduces your gas mileage. If you know you will be carrying a lot of weight in your vehicle on a regular basis, make sure it is equipped to handle it.

Keep up on your car’s preventative maintenance. You go see your doctor to get an annual physical every year, and you stay up-to-date on vaccines and other annual tests like colonoscopies, mammograms, etc. to stay on top of your health. Similarly, your car’s owner manual should have a maintenance schedule of services that need to be performed at different mileage intervals, such as changing the oil, changing the transmission fluid, changing the brake fluid and more. This can make a huge difference in your car’s performance and longevity.

Get minor repairs fixed before they become major. Ever know you need to have a tooth pulled, but it’s not bothering you, so you put it off? That’s fine, but it could start affecting other things and become a bigger problem if you don’t take care of it sooner rather than later. Not unlike dental work, when ignored, a small repair affecting one part of your car can start to affect other parts and become more expensive to fix. Brakes and tires are a good example of this.

Keep it Clean. Allowing dirt to build up can seriously affect your car’s paint job, and if your paint deteriorates it will eventually rust, and a rusted-out car offers no protection for your engine and other car parts. Granted, that would take a long time, but it’s far easier to just keep your car clean from the start. Besides, it’s a great feeling to drive a clean, shiny car!

Don’t ignore recalls. If a car manufacturer issues a recall, they do it for a reason. Many times that reason is safety. Get your car in for the recall. Enough said.

This sounds like a lot to do to lengthen the life of your car, but really it’s not. And since most car maintenance is cheaper than buying a new car more frequently (especially when you include sales tax and higher property taxes on newer vehicles), why not try to make it last?