*This is a collaborative guest post
Driving anywhere in the UK, be it near Yorkshire or London you need to make sure your vehicle is all prepared to roll on different road terrains. Are you weighing up whether to book your service as soon as it is needed, or are you thinking up good excuses to delay it for a while? The latter is not a good choice, no matter your budget, and here are five real ways that car servicing will save you from trouble in the future.
Pick Up Problems Promptly
While a lot of car servicing is seemingly superficial and minor, those small tasks can have a very big knock on effect on the state of your car. For example, let us say the mechanic changes the oil filter, as standard with a service. While under the hood the mechanic spots rather too much oil than they like to see oozing about. Aha! There is a small hole in a seal. The mechanic thinks nothing of it: he gets – or makes – a new washer and fits it, wiping up the spilled oil, and then continues with the service, returning your car to you in great condition.
Now, if the mechanic had not done the service, you would shortly have seen your oil light come on. Not a problem, you might have thought, popping in a pint or so of fresh oil. But, oh dear. As the new oil heats up, it gets thinner and runnier, positively spewing through that small hole. Which gets bigger under the pressure. Meanwhile, you have trickles of highly flammable oil dripping all over your engine which is getting hotter and hotter the longer you drive… The end of this scenario really doesn’t bear thinking about, now does it?
Maintain the Value of Your Investment
You might think of your car as being merely a form of transport, but it is in fact an investment of a sizable sum of money. Having your car serviced regularly to keep it in good shape (and always asking for manufacturer’s spare parts to be used) can make sure that it doesn’t lose value as quickly as it can. While cars do depreciate fairly quickly, this process can be softened with a stringent service record, careful driving and meticulous attention to detail.
Save You Money
In the scenario in the first point, the car potentially ended up with a fire under the hood – a fire which would have wreaked havoc with the car, and possibly even resulted in your needing to find a new car to replace your burned-out hulk! Any time your service performs a small preventative act, your mechanic potentially saves you money in this fashion. It is seldom acknowledged though, as it is hard to assess or appreciate things that do not happen.
Keep You Safe
Having your mechanic take care of small problems before they escalate can keep you safe and even save your life. As implied in the first point, that mythical unserviced car could have burst into flames while you were driving along. This could cause major problems, not only for you but for other drivers!
Think about how you might react were you driving along, minding your own business when suddenly the vehicle next to you bursts into flames. You might panic and drive out into oncoming traffic, or swerve away from them into the path of another road user – who, distracted themselves by the commotion do not see you, or you might brake sharply intending to leap out and help them, only to have a less attentive driver run into your rear. We now have a potential multi-car pile-up: if only the service had been done and the small leak found and re-sealed… To make sure you enjoy trouble-free driving book car servicing in Pontefract from Reg Greenwood.
Always Legally Compliant
Finally, all cars older than three years old in the UK (except Ireland where it is four) must have a valid MOT test certificate. This does not mean that your car should only be roadworthy for the duration of the test: the certificate is proof of the condition of your car at the time of the test, yes, but having a valid certificate, but current faults with the car that would earn a fail means that you are in violation of the law, and you are risking a fine, points on your license, and perhaps even the loss of your car if the faults are serious enough. Regular servicing will ensure that all the MOT requirements are adhered to, even if this is an interim service, positioned six months before and after your MOT test.
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