Unless you’re a very hands-on type of person, car maintenance is the least fun part of owning a car. It’s a chore, much like mowing your lawn or doing the dishes. Like those chores, car maintenance is essential. Failing to have routine maintenance done on your car can lead to lasting consequences and a permanent loss in the resale value of your vehicle.

Regardless of if you’re driving a new or used car, you keep it reliable by keeping it maintained. To stay healthy, you should go see the doctor once a year for a physical and annual check up. Your teeth need to be cleaned by a dentist twice a year if you want to avoid cavities. It’s the same principle with your car. This is an investment that you want to take care of.

Here are three fundamental reasons why it’s important to have regular preventative maintenance performed on your car.

Why You Need a Car Maintenance Schedule

Safety

While your car travels around, carrying you from work to home, to the gym and back again, parts wear down. Tires, brakes, pistons, spark plugs – all of these parts and more will wear down through the everyday grind of driving.

There are also fluids: oil, gasoline, brake fluid, that heat up and cool down while being pumped to various areas of a car.

With so many moving parts and components at risk, it’s no wonder regular car maintenance is so important. Without persistent care, your car might not only stop working. It could also become a hazard to you and others.

Fortunately, you can alleviate this risk with regular visits to your local Car City dealership for maintenance. Our service technicians can inspect your car and let you know when it’s time to change your oil, service your brakes, rotate your tires, and so on.  

 

Money

As you can see in this chart from Bankrate, there’s a real financial cost that comes with skipping maintenance on your car. For an average car, you might spend $120 getting oil changes in a year. But if you skip those oil changes, your car might suffer catastrophic engine failure, and an engine replacement can cost as much as $4,000.

Just read over that whole chart. We’ll wait.

The cost of sticking to your maintenance schedule is far and away worth it compared to what you would have to spend if you skip the basic stuff. In the worst case scenario, you’ll end up having to buy a new car.

 

Peace of Mind

Have you ever gone on a camping trip and have your car not start thousands of miles from anywhere? How about picking up a hot date and your car dies in the driveway? Whether you have or haven’t, you can imagine how terrible that would be.

Don’t play Russian roulette with your car. Without consistent car maintenance, it’s a ticking time bomb that’s just waiting to break down when you need it most. It’s almost like karma or something.

Instead, schedule a service appointment at the Car City store nearest to you. We have in-house service departments at each of our dealerships that are staffed by trained technicians. We know how to take care of your car and how often it needs to be taken care of, so if you’re having trouble coming up with your own car maintenance schedule, just ask us for help.

We operate out of Whiteville, Lumberton, and Calabash, North Carolina, as well as Conway, South Carolina. If you’re in the area and you need assistance, come see us.