Doing your own car maintenance on your car is a lot easier than it may sound. Once you are able to perform maintenance on
your own car, you will see the savings almost instantly. Mechanics charge outrageous prices to work on cars. What makes things worse
is the fact that you can do a majority of what they do for nearly 3/4 of the price.
Most cars require at least four oil changes a year, which leads to you saving a lot of money. Even if you have no experience
with cars, you can do simple maintenance yourself. Oil changes are easy to do -- and easy to save money with as well.
The basic types of car maintenance include such things as topping fluids, flushing coolant, oil changes, checking tire
pressure, checking the spark plugs, and so on. You can do each and every one of these tasks yourself once you have the right tools.
To perform an oil change on your car, you will need to have the following tools handy:
- A spanner or socket to take loose the drain plug
- An oil filter clamp to take the oil filter off
- A new oil filter
- A tray or bucket to let the old oil drain into
- New oil (refer to your owners manual to see how much you need)
- A funnel to pour the new oil in with
Believe it or not, it only takes a few minutes to complete an oil change. The oil normally drains slow, which is to be
expected. Once you take the drain plug out, simply slide your tray or bucket underneath and let the oil drain out. Keep a check on it, and
put the drain plug back on when the oil has finished draining.
Other car maintenance tasks that you can perform yourself include spark plug checks and coolant flushes. You can check your
spark plugs simply by locating them and using a deep socket to reach into the chamber. Use the socket to unseat the plug, take it out, and check
it. If the spark plug is white or appears to be burnt, go ahead and change it. Spark plugs will cause your car to misfire if they go
bad, which is why they should be changed as needed.
Another important factor of car maintenance is coolant changes. They should be performed at least once a year, as they
help stop your car from overheating. To change the coolant, simply undo the radiator hose that runs from the resevoir tank and let the
coolant drain. Make sure that your car hasn't been run any that day before you change the coolant.
Car maintenance is actually as simple as that. It's a lot easier than it sounds, and will save you tons of money in the
long run.
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