Preventive Maintenance – How ignoring it results in reduced vehicle life?

Vehicles are a durable asset. Frequent preventive maintenance makes your vehicles last longer. They keep the vehicle running smoothly and ensure it stays in a zero-kilometer state for the longest time possible. Otherwise, it affects its lifespan as well as fuel efficiency to a considerable level.

We can divide Vehicle maintenance primarily into 2 types:

1. Corrective maintenance can be performed only after something breaks.
2. Preventive maintenance, which can done to prevent the need for costlier corrective maintenance. The parts are replaced before they wear out excessively and break.

Today we are going to talk about Preventive maintenance.

Why do the maintenance of your car?

Vehicle manufacturers design cars to run for a particular life before they present any significant problems requiring considerable intervention, such as an engine change. This mark can vary between 200 thousand and 600 thousand kilometers, depending on the quality of the components used in its manufacturing and the Preventive Maintenance carried out.

However, for this mark to be reached, it is essential to carry out preventive maintenance of cars, which, unfortunately, many people are not used to doing correctly. Failure to keep up with the vehicle’s needs ends up limiting the engine’s life and other vital parts.

Malpractice by Service Persons

There are times, when the preventive or corrective maintenance services use old parts or low-quality parts for the important parts of the vehicle. They might also do it so that they can show that they charge less as well as to save something extra from the whole service charge. Such kinds of malpractices are quite common these days. It is always better to avoid such mechanics and workshops who are offering the services in extremely low price. Try to choose maintenance providers that ask for a justified price or get your vehicle serviced from authorized service centers. Otherwise, your vehicle may get affected.

Negligent Maintenance of the Vehicle

The vehicle needs to have a proper preventive maintenance at the scheduled time as well as in between. Not only that it needs to be maintained, but also that the necessary and other damaged parts need to be changed. This is where most of the car owners falter. They wait and stay under the impression that they can do away with ‘minor’ damages. But these parts start malfunctioning eventually and as a result, the other major parts of the cars get damaged too. Taking prior precautions is essential. If the vehicle becomes the victim of negligence, then the results may become too costly to bear.

What Parts to Maintain to Reduce Fuel Consumption?

Having a clean and well-tuned engine optimizes its performance and increases the life of the vehicle. Thus, proper preventive maintenance of your vehicle will reduce its fuel consumption. Failure to do so offers a negative result. There are a few parts that are easy to maintain. But they have a good positive impact on the vehicle life and efficiency. Some of them are:

Maintaining Air Filters

Clogging is a common problem with air filters. It causes poor combustion and reduces the efficiency of your engine, which then consumes more fuel. Checking its condition regularly is a must. It is advisable to change it at least once a year (depending on the number of kilometers traveled).

Which Engine Oil to Use to Reduce Fuel Consumption?

This is another crucial point of good preventive maintenance of your vehicle and a reduction in fuel consumption. Fuel costs can go high if you do not use the vehicle with the correct fuel type. Such poor choice deteriorates the fuel consumption process. In the case of the other larger vehicles, the expenditure will be arduous.

Maintain the Fuel filters

This filter is an element that removes unwanted particles from the fuel. Its frequent maintenance allows the combustion chamber to always receive a liquid of good quality, without any foreign factors that may hinder fuel burning. Lack of maintenance will cause affected combustion engines, and that will lead to vehicle starting issues.

You must check the fuel filter every 10,000 kilometers or annually. Always follow the manufacturer’s manual or the oil manufacturer’s information while doing so. This component is inexpensive and simple to replace, so be sure to replace it. The losses caused by the negligence in changing Fuel Filters are more expensive than even very costly vehicle parts. Replacing this component during preventive maintenance avoids many serious corrective maintenance costs.

Maintain the Air conditioning filter

The air conditioning filter, also known as the cabin filter, is a filtering element responsible for retaining dust particles and allowing passengers always to breathe clean air inside the vehicle. Check this component every 10 thousand kilometers or one year. With the lack of preventive maintenance of these filters, feeling the coolness inside the vehicle will not be possible.

In the case of vehicles traveling in areas with a lot of pollution, the experts recommend that you do the preventive maintenance check in half the time. Particles circling within the dirty cabin filter can be harmful to health, especially for people who have breathing problems, as, over time, there is an accumulation of mites and fungi in the filter.

Maintain the various Belts

The vehicle and its engines have several belts, each with a different verification period. The most famous belt is the toothed one. It receives the force generated by the crankshaft movement and distributes it among other components, such as the water pump and valve control. As it is the central belt of the car, it deserves the special attention of the vehicle owner. It is necessary to check the condition of the toothed belt every 50,000 kilometers to know when to replace it. If not replaced, it wears out eventually, giving a hard time to the vehicle owner.

Spark plugs

Spark plugs are responsible for emitting a spark, which burn the fuel-air mixture. An electrode produces this spark. It operates is like the ignition of an electric stove, which sparks when you press the button. Over time, if not changed, the spark plug electrode will wear out. A worn electrode leaves the vehicle malfunctioning, as the defective spark plug cylinder does not operate normally. This effect causes a sudden loss of power.

So, Choose the Right Vehicle Maintenance Options

Vehicle preventive & corrective maintenance prices generally relate to the price you paid for the model. If you buy an imported car, which costs much higher than popular ones, maintenance will be no different. This is because the prices of the parts of such vehicles are also usually costly.

Therefore, the cost that you invest to buy a vehicle is not the only amount the vehicle owner has to pay. To realize the dream of owning a car, it is necessary to include the expenses with maintenance, taxes, etc. To save money, you can look for models that have cheaper maintenance. The ideal is to carry out all preventive maintenance at the right time, so there is no need to correct vehicle problems. No one recommends to wait for the parts to break as it also poses a risk to the driver’s safety. This situation makes maintenance much more expensive since a broken part affects the functioning of other components. If you do not do it in time, then excessive usages & heat starts affecting each of the components.

Did you know that even ignoring tyres can increase the cost of your vehicle maintenance?