One often wonders how to increase car life, which is completely understandable given the fact that buying a car is one of the most important decisions for many people in the country.
Many of you will agree that maintaining a car is similar to raising a child - from taking care of the fuel, which is food for the car, to ensuring its good health through routine check-ups, there's actually a lot in common! Maintaining your car properly will ensure it serves you well for many years. This is especially important during these times of inflation when upgrading from one car to something from a segment above is not that easy anymore. Hence, it's in the best interest of everyone to maintain the car well until it's finally time to sell it off and buy something better. Of course, maintaining a car properly also helps you get a better resale value for it when you finally decide to part ways with it.
What's even better is that one doesn't need to be an auto expert to be able to maintain their car properly. All one needs to do is to follow some simple instructions and ensure timely care of the vehicles. Remember, being proactive pays and helps you save a lot of money in maintenance. To make things easier for you, here are some important tips to increase car life -
Covering and Cleaning
Car paint loses shine with time, much of which is due to the wear and tear caused by sunlight and dirt. Hence, it's good to keep you covered in the parking lot. Doing so will help you prevent the paint from getting worn out due to heat, dust, bird droppings, insects, etc. Moreover, you should clean your car regularly and use wax polish to preserve the paint's shine. You can also clean the car every month with a high-pressure jet or get it cleaned at some professional detailing outlet. Remember, a car with badly maintained paintwork suffers from reduced resale value. So, investing some time and resources in maintaining the paint now can help you reap benefits later.
Apply Parking Brake
A parking brake should be applied not just when parking the car but also when dealing with steep inclines on the hills or even when you have to press the gas to get the car going while still ensuring it doesn't roll back. Doing so helps you keep the brakes on the rear axle adjusted and even enhance their life. However, make sure you don't overdo this, as unnecessary usage will lead to increased wear and tear and can even jam the rear brakes. But do remember that the parking brake can be used to keep the rear brakes adjusted.
Change the Engine Oil
Engine oil is quite literally to the car's engine what blood is to your heart. Lack of correct grade and good quality engine oil significantly increases friction in the engine components. Higher friction due to improper lubrication can even reduce the mileage of the vehicle and cause increased wear and tear of the engine components. Therefore, check the engine oil level every few thousand kilometres and get it replaced with correct grade oil at the recommended interval. Please refer to your car's owner's manual to find out the right grade engine oil and the oil change interval for your vehicle.
Also Read: How to Choose Best Engine Oil For Car?
Change Drive Belt and Timing Belt
The next suggestion on our list of tips to increase car life is as important as the last one. In order to ensure the smooth running of your car's engine, it's important to ensure that the drive and timing belts are in good condition. These belts should be replaced as soon as the belts wear out as worn-out belts can cause permanent damage to the engine of the vehicle. Also, in case the belts fray ahead of the schedule during the warranty period, you can have the manufacturer replace them for free of cost.
Keep an Eye on Tyre Pressure
In case you haven't noticed, the tires of your car are the only part of it that is constantly in contact with the surfaces you travel on. This is exactly why ensuring the good health of tires is highly important for the overall maintenance of the vehicle. Firstly, ensure your car's tires are inflated properly. Also, make sure wheel alignment has been done to avoid uneven wear and tear of your car's footwear. Tyre rotation at correct intervals is also required to ensure the tires have a long life. Having incorrect pressure can not only damage the tires but also increase the chances of an accident due to blowouts. It also leads to increased wear and tear of several suspension components.
Get AC Serviced
It must be noted here that almost 10 per cent of the freezing agent evaporates every year from a car's air-conditioning system. Hence, if the chemical is not replenished on time, the compressor can suffer some permanent damage. You're requested to get your car's air conditioning system serviced every three years. Even the blower should be serviced regularly to make sure that the AC system works perfectly.
Don't Use Car For Short Trips
Avoid taking the car out for making small trips of, say, just 1-2 kms. Doing so will ensure that your fuel consumption doesn't suffer as the car consumes more fuel and makes higher emissions just at the start of the journey. Soon, these aspects attain normalcy as the engine starts working at normal temperature. However, on short trips, when the engine doesn't get enough time for warm-up, you might not only end up consuming more fuel but even increase the wear and tear of the motor.
Engine Warm Up
As mentioned in the last point of this list of tips to increase car life, an engine takes a while after being fired up to start running at normal operating temperatures. If you start accelerating hard as soon as you switch your car on, the motor might not get lubricated properly as the engine oil is still quite thick at that stage. This can inflict some serious damage to your car's engine and exhaust system. Hence, it's a good practice to run the engine on idle for a while before you start your journey.
Change Gears Smoothly
In case you have a car equipped with a manual transmission, you should make sure you change the gears as smoothly as you can as abrupt gear changes not only leads to a jerky power delivery but even increased wear and tear of the gears and the clutch. Moreover, make sure you don't rest your foot on the clutch pedal after making a gear shift as doing so can inflict permanent damage on the clutch plates and thereby, lead to higher maintenance costs.
Also Read: Best Manual Transmission Cars in India - Price, Mileage, Specifications, Images, Colours
Avoid Rash Driving
Rash driving leads to higher wear and tear in all parts of your car. It also increases the chance of an accident and puts lives of not only the driver but even of other road users at risk. Hard acceleration and heavy braking can damage components in the clutch, brakes, transmission and engine systems. Therefore, drive smoothly and gain speed as you cruise. Rash driving is not only illegal but can be really very bad for yours as well as your car's health.
So, these were some basic tips to increase car life. We request you to follow all of them from immediate effect to enjoy many years of happy motoring with your current car.
In case you're planning to sell your manual transmission car car, Cars24 can not only offer you an amazing platform to sell your used car online and get the best price but even takes care of all the documentation, including the RC transfer, entirely free of cost. You can check out our old car valuation tool to find out the right resale value of any used car on sale in the country.
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