Making the Most of Your Auto Parts

No matter how you look it, auto repairs are costly. Even if you do most of the maintenance work yourself, regularly buying all those auto parts can still cost you a pretty penny in the long run. Even if you buy the highest-end, most expensive, and supposedly most durable parts, it's inevitable that they will wear out eventually. However, there are some steps that you can take to maximize the care that you give to your car and make those repairs and replacements last a lot longer than they normally would.

An Ounce of Prevention...

An ounce of prevention is a lot better than a pound of cure, especially when you look at the costs involved. A single problem, if allowed to continue for too long, can lead to complications that cause even more problems and more costs for you. All of your car's parts need to be in as good a shape as possible for them to work together properly.

Preventive maintenance is the key, and important in making your car and its parts last longer because you avoid the damaging problems before they even occur. The best way to preventively maintain your car is to follow a schedule of regular checkups and certain auto maintenance procedures like oil and fluid changes. A typical schedule involves checking your oil and your car's fluids every three months or so.

Oil and fluid changes are perhaps the maintenance procedures that you'll have to do most frequently because they're the ones that keep all the gears and parts in good, working condition. Lapsing on your oil and fluid changes will make your car parts wear out much faster, meaning you'll have to replace more often. The changes aren't expensive procedures - you can even do them yourself, if you prefer - so you shouldn't scrimp by having them done with too much time in between.

Having regular tune-ups done is another great way to stretch the lifetime of your car parts and, indeed, the car itself. Tuning up your car every twelve months or so will help ensure that all the parts are in proper working order. Remember that cars basically involve hundreds of parts and gears working together to make the vehicle move. Just one item out of sync could throw all the others off sync and even damage them, meaning more repairs and more costs for you.

What is important is that you have these procedures done on your car on a regular basis. Have a checklist or make a note on your calendar to have them done in set intervals. With the costs of car repair what they are today, the trouble of keeping track of all the maintenance procedures is a relatively small price to pay when compared with the actual price of car repairs.

 

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Good Car Care Advice from Tom T - #5

Tom Torbjornsen, host of "America's Car Show" radio program answers questions from his listeners. (Listen to Tom's radio shows every Saturday and Sunday right here on The Auto Channel)

In car buying, new sometimes a better deal than used

By Gregory Karp, Chicago Tribune Wednesday, July 28, 2010 Used-car prices in the United States are soaring, creating a wacky situation for many models in which buying new costs about the same or even cheaper than buying used. Credit the prolonged recession with prompting more Americans to buy used, sending the average price of a 3-year-old car up 11.1 percent from last year and triple the ...