Whether you purchase a new or pre-owned vehicle, buying a car is a major investment. As an owner, it’s important for you to protect your investment by caring for your car properly. This includes keeping up with regular maintenance, such as oil changes, tire rotations, and brake pad replacements. While this may seem like another frustrating expense to worry about, dedicating money to regular car maintenance can often help you save money in the long term. Our team at Huffines Hyundai Plano created this guide to help you learn more about the financial benefits of maintaining your vehicle.
Improve Gas Mileage
Ok gas mileage by Peter Stevens is licensed with CC BY 2.0
One of the most significant factors affecting your gas mileage is whether or not your vehicle is operating at peak performance. While normal wear and tear on your vehicle’s parts may not cause catastrophic damage, ignoring problems for too long can negatively affect performance and fuel efficiency. Keeping up with maintenance and professional checks helps prevent fuel wastage, which will enable you to save money on rising fuel costs. Even something as seemingly small as ensuring that your tires have enough air in them, and that they are balanced correctly, can help improve your gas mileage.
Detect Issues Before They Become Worse
Regular maintenance is helpful in detecting potential issues and addressing them before they worsen. For example, having your tires rotated informs you about tread levels so that you can plan when you may need to replace them. Similarly, during the rotation, a technician may find a small nail that’s slowly draining the air from your tire, allowing you to prevent an expensive, unexpected replacement by patching it that day.
When planning for regular maintenance, it’s generally best to follow the manufacturer’s recommendations for your vehicle’s specific make and model. Other factors such as your mileage and driving conditions may help you determine when to arrange for a service. Using the maintenance schedules provided by Hyundai helps you establish when to inspect and replace things and ensures that a professional will examine your vehicle regularly.
Avoid Expensive Repairs
Following a routine maintenance schedule can help you avoid costly repairs. For example, it’s essential to replace your brake pads. While it may seem acceptable to continue driving with worn brake pads as long as your vehicle stops, this can damage other parts of your vehicle, such as your tires. When worn brake pads cause you to use the brakes more firmly, your tire treads wear more quickly. This may force you to replace your tires earlier than you would otherwise have needed to.
Another example is checking your car fluids and changing your oil regularly. Oil is essential for lubricating many parts of your vehicle, especially those within your engine. Neglecting oil changes can result in sludge-like buildups of oil in your car and cause engine damage. However, getting regular oil changes helps to increase the longevity of your engine. Oil changes also often include inspections, which will provide you with a professional review of your vehicle to identify any concerns.
Prevent Unexpected Emergencies
Keeping up with vehicle maintenance helps ensure that you don’t miss any important milestones, which can help prevent unexpected issues. For example, let’s say your vehicle requires spark plug replacements every 40,000 miles, but you neglect to do this. It may trigger your check engine light, which can cause concern. While you may be able to take your car to a mechanic safely for inspection, driving there with your check engine light on might be unsafe, which would require you to pay for expensive towing services.
Car-related emergencies or last-minute car repairs can be even more frustrating if you’re away from home. Unexpected car troubles may delay road trips, causing you to waste money you have already spent. There’s also the added risk of having few options to choose from for service or having to pay a higher price to receive rush maintenance service.
Increase the Longevity of Your Vehicle
The overarching goal of routine maintenance is to keep your car operating at peak performance. This helps you maintain the integrity of all your vehicle’s components and ensures they work smoothly. Caring for your vehicle properly should help it last longer and ensure that you can keep your car long past when you pay it off in full. This gives you plenty of time to save for purchasing a new car or other essential purchases.
Maintain the Value of Your Vehicle
Consistent preventative maintenance is beneficial for maintaining the value of your vehicle. While natural wear and tear will happen, staying current with the recommended maintenance schedule can help you avoid costly repairs and prevent your vehicle from losing value. It can also be especially be helpful if you’re hoping to sell your car or trade it in to buy a new one. Having a well-maintained vehicle with few issues may be especially appealing to buyers.
Promote Safety on the Roads
While regular maintenance is essential for addressing larger concerns, it’s also useful for monitoring the smaller things that aren’t always top of mind but are just as important for driving safely. For example, following a maintenance schedule helps you know when to replace your windshield wipers. This is essential for ensuring you can see when driving, which will help you to avoid accidents. Maintenance can also help you to identify when to replace your headlights and taillights. Not only is that important for driving in the dark, but it may also help you avoid costly tickets for safety violations.
We’ve reached the end of our list addressing why proper car maintenance can save you money in the long term. At Huffines Hyundai Plano, our qualified team is here for all of your Hyundai needs. We invite you to visit our state-of-the-art service center, where factory-trained technicians work expertly on every type of Hyundai. Whether it’s time for your regular oil change or you think that there may be something wrong with your car, our team of experts is here to help.