Run your car for less

With the price of car maintenance and services going up and British wages going down, maintaining your car can cost you a lot to look after so knowing what you can do yourself at home with a few hints and tips, looking after your car then means your car will look after you.

• Making sure you keep your windscreen wash tank full and with the right fluid is important. Do not try and use your windscreen wash when the tank is almost empty as you can damage the washer pump.
• Touch up and stone chips as soon as possible, if left the rain and cold is sure to create rust. Rust is alive, it grows like a fungus. It just keeps growing and growing.
• When cleaning your car, remove your car mats from the foot wells, pressure wash them and leave them to dry on the line. Doing this will blast out any grit and mud that is lodged in your mats because eventually if let, holes begin to form.
• Buy Petrol from reputable petrol stations that you can trust. Some petrol stations do not use the correct filtering system to filter there fuel so sometimes it is a good idea to enquire about it, dirty petrol is bad petrol.
• Sometimes it is a good idea not to stop at a petrol station while the fuel tanker lorry is there. When the lorry arrives to fill up the large underground tanks it stirs up and dirt that may have got into the tank, so when you start pumping your car full of fuel you’re just putting that dirt straight into your car. To drive onto the next station or come back the next morning is always a good way of avoiding this.
• Wash your car in the winter as well as the summer. Many people do not bother cleaning their cars in the winter because it will just be mucky again the next day. That is true and it is irritating but the longer you leave your car dirty the more of an effect you are having on its paint work. Ice, snow, rain and general road dirt equals rust.
• Keep your tyres fully inflated to their necessary limit which you can find in your handbook, under inflated tyres equals damaged tyres cost you more money to have to change them more regularly.
• Though out the winter occasional turn your AC in order to keep the generator healthy and preventing it from seizing when you do need it.