With Lovert Mafukure
MANY car owners have been asking the same question for a while now, when to service their vehicles..
This guide is a rough guide for those DIY enthusiasts and meant to help most of us Japanese used car owners. It is worth your while however, to check with your manufacturer’s recommendations on when to service your vehicle.
This guide is for cars that have no known defects as some defects can affect when you should service your vehicle.
For every 500km that you drive there are simple things that need to be checked like engine oil level, coolant level, brake fluid level, washer fluid level and you may need to check for tyre pressure as well. The fluid level shouldn’t drop drastically within this period or it may point to leaks in the system.
For every 10 000km or 6 months that you drive you need to change your engine oil and oil filter. Change intervals may vary according to the quality of engine oil that you use.
Synthetic oil may give you more mileage before there’s any need to change the oil. That is why you find some high performance cars like Porsche only go for service at 15 000 or 30 000km. That’s because they use high quality synthetic oils.
Tyre rotation is necessary as well. Many people tend to neglect tyre rotation because they don’t even know why it is recommended or they don’t see its importance.
The reason tyre rotation is necessary is to allow for even tyre wear.
Most cars are front wheel drive and there is a lot of stress on the front wheels than the back. There is therefore more wear on front tyres. Every six months you can rotate the tyres back to front if your car has the same size of tyres so that you can have even tyre wear right round.
It is good to check also the ATF level in your automatic transmission but it does not need changing yet. Check all drive belts and hoses for wear. Replace them if necessary.
Rubber boots on drive shafts and steering racks also need checking for wear and tear. Make sure they are not broken in any way because debris, water and foreign matter are the last things you need inside the driveshaft or steering components.
Every 20 000km or 12 months there is need for a couple of things to be checked. First of all, batteries