A famous saying, ‘Prevention is way more better than cure’ applies also to your car safety and maintenance. Taking note of vital aspects can help you keep your car perform well on road for a longer time. Cars are a major asset, and no one ever intentionally wishes to damage their car. However, many small things, we might not be aware of, can badly damage our cars and their performance. Proper care and maintenance of cars helps avoid unintentionally damaging the vehicle. Let’s go over the basic and major mistakes that could be killing your car.
1. Ignoring Oil Changes
Oil old can cause engine problems and reduce its efficiency. Change your engine oil as per your car’s manual to avoid costly damages to your engine.
2. Dirty Air Filter
Clogged and dirty air filters can reduce fuel efficiency and engine performance. Keep cleaning and blowing air through dirty air filters to ensure smooth functioning of your vehicle.
3. Ignoring Tire Pressure
One main cause of premature tire failure is ignoring the right amount of pressure in the tires. It can greatly affect the vehicle’s fuel economy and handling. You can simply keep a regular check of your car’s tire pressure and maintain the proper pressure when required. Moreover, keep note to not exceed the maximum tire pressure as indicated on the sidewall of the tire. Over or under-inflated tires badly affect handling and fuel efficiency.
4. Choosing the Wrong Fuel
Use the right fuel as per your car type to ensure its proper functioning. Ethanol or diesel is not suitable for a car, and may lead to costly repairs. A car that feeds on gasoline can work fine on ethanol, but its power will be less, and can risk damage to engine due to the highly corrosive nature of ethanol. Using diesel in a gasoline-powered vehicle will require the fuel system to be flushed and bear you enormous damage cost. Moreover, it can also destroy your emissions-control hardware.
5. Not Rotating Tires
Failing to rotate tires can lead to uneven wear. Rotate your tires regularly, to ensure smooth flow of the vehicle.
6. Ignoring Fluid Levels
Your car’s manual may have a list of the important fluids of your car, these need to be checked regularly. Failing to check important fluids like washer fluid can create much inconvenience. These fluids should be maintained regularly to avoid risk and damage critical mechanical parts.
7. Using Low Quality Spare Parts
Low quality or wrong spare parts may lead to frequent breakdowns, and also emergency situations. Try investing in good quality spare parts to avoid frequent problems for the late run.
8. Aggressive Driving
Rapid acceleration, and deceleration and using hard braking can wear out components quickly. Prefer a smooth drive to ensure all components stay intact.
9. Harsh Braking
Harsh or hard braking is another sign of aggressive driving. This leads to increased tire wear and many more maintenance problems.
10. Overloading the Car
Overloading a car affects its performance, handling and smooth riding capability. It may also overtax its braking system, burden the tires, transmission, and engine to a point of failure. Over-burdening your car on a regular basis can also lead to high maintenance costs. Try spreading weight evenly throughput your vehicle, and avoid overloading just one corner or axle of a car.
11. Keeping Car exposed to Sun
Prioritize parking your car under a shade, as sun exposure and harsh weather can damage their exterior, and also over-heat the interior.
12. Ignoring Exhaust System Problems
Neglecting exhaust system problems may lead to carbon monoxide poisoning, reduced engine performance, and also legal issues due to noise emission.
These leaks can lead to toxic fumes entering the cabin. Keep checking if your car’s exhaust systems are working intact.
13. Ignoring Car Warm Up in Winter
Startup your car and warm up for a few minutes before driving it off, especially in winters. This helps clear out the exhaust pipes and keep safe from carbon monoxide poisoning. Later, driving will bring the car to operating temperature and heats up the cabin faster.
14. Driving with Worn Out Shock Absorbers
Ignoring worn shock absorbers destroys even a perfect set of tires, and makes your car drift from side to side. Severe worn out of shocks can also lead to loss of vehicle control and extend braking distances. These circumstances may lead to dangerous situations.
15. Not Fixing a Car’s Windshield
Small windshield chips should be fixed timely before they turn into a crack. This often requires to replace the entire screen. Small cracks worsen overtime due to temperature change or small rocks falling on them.
16. Driving with Low Brake Pads
Worn pads can create excessive heat accumulation. This damages rotors and compromise safety. If unchecked, this can also damage the calipers, leading to more expensive repairs.
17. Avoiding Time Belt Changes
Delaying time belt replacement can lead to major issues for your car. This can cause serious damage to your car’s engine. A broken belt can also make the vehicle inoperable, bend your valves and pistons, thereby damaging the engine.
18. Driving Low Fuel Tank
Frequent drives on low or empty fuel tank can damage the fuel pump. Try avoiding such circumstances to ensure your car efficiency.
19. Ignoring Collision Damage
Get your car fixed, the soonest even after the slightest collision damage. A small dent or scrape can also create you big problems, multiplying the repair costs. A surface blemish may be hiding more damage beneath it. The more time you waste after a collision, the harder it gets to get an insurance claim for it. Moreover, dents make you loose the pride of your car ownership, so get it fixed on time.
21. Using Wrong Size tires
Automakers recommend specific size for a car model. These are engineered to work with the car’s performance and expected loads. Using the wrong size type can stress its powertrain, affect its handling, and also compromise safety systems. Use of tires with less or more grip negates the proper functioning of automatic emergency braking. Use of very large tires can create rubbing on suspension parts and also lead to premature tire failure.
21. Neglecting the Battery
Not regularly cleaning battery terminals or replacing an old battery can lead to battery failure.
22. No use of Sunshade
Sunshades protect your car from sun as well as outside dust and pollution. Not using a sunshade will also expose your car’s interior to heat, fade its exterior and may also crack the paint.
23. Ignoring Alignment Problems
Car alignment should be regularly monitored. Unaligned wheels can lead to tire wear, car handling issues, that may drift your car off the road into incoming traffic. Alignment issues can lead you to dangerous situations, and also disrupt your car’s interior functioning. Try getting your car alignment done as frequent as you replace your tires. Moreover, get it checked whenever you notice your car drifting right or left without any steering movement.
24. Keeping the Interior Dirty
Dirty interior, food smell, and liquid spills may get into the delicate electronics of your car. These create problems that are even difficult for a technician to troubleshoot. Moreover, carbonated drinks are also corrosive and can rust if not cleared on time.
25. Rapid Starts and Stops
Avoid jackrabbit starts, stops, and hard braking. Hard acceleration strains numerous car components, which includes expensive high-tech automatic transmissions. Late braking wears out rotors and brake pads and reduces the safety margin as your approach traffic, and other road hazards.
26. Ignoring Headlights and Taillights
Burnt-out or low ray bulbs can impair visibility and safety. Keep a regular check of your head and tail lights to keep up with safety measures while driving.
27. Coasting on Automatic Transmission
Driving to neutral to save fuel through a long downhill, is dangerous and also illegal in some states. This makes the engine lose its ability to brake properly. Try avoiding such measures to ensure your and the car’s safety.
28. Ignoring the Owner’s Manual
Keep note of the manufacturer’s manual for maintenance and other car’s services. Many people assume that the maintenance schedule published in the manuals is for a steady income stream to the owner’s services department. However, proper periodic maintenance is requires to replace worn out parts and solve small problems before they become big issues.
29. Ignoring Warning Lights
Dashboard warning lights are not just for display, they indicate important aspects of car that should be taken care of in time. Take note of any warning message, and take prompt actions to solve it as soon as possible.
30. Hitting Pitholes
Pitholes can badly damage your car’s tires, bend the wheels, make your car go out of alignment, and also break suspension components. Avoid ways with pitholes and rough surfaces to avoid million dollars damage to your car.
31. Not using the Emergency Brake
Parking your car and using the transmission brake to hold your car can cause risk costly damage and also create a safety hazard. It is vital to use the emergency brake, also known as the hand break, while you keep your car steady for a long time.
32. Inadvertent Gear Change
Shifting the gear to Reverse while the vehicle is still in forward motion can lead to significant damage to the car’s transmission. This puts stress on the car’s transmission components, as they get exposed to abrupt change in direction, and may lead to premature wear or failure. This also leads to costly repairs and expensive work on the vehicle.
33. No regular Cleaning
Washing a car not only makes it look nice, and attractive, but also helps get rid of chemicals that can cause rust or damage to its exterior. Keep your car clean to make it look nice and prevent such damages.
34. Not Driving Enough
One most important factor that can damage your car is not driving it regularly. If a car sits for too long, its battery can be dead, its gas stale, and tires get out of round. Parking a car for very long invites critters and makes it turn to their homes. Take occasional rides to warm up your car, ensure fluids slowing, and keep its battery recharged.
35. Driving it Way to Much
Limited, as well as excessive driving can damage your car. Try managing your errands in a way that your car has few long trips in a day, instead of multiple short ones.
36. Ignoring Car Leaks
Fluid leakage from cars are surely a sign that something is wrong inside. Clean water from air conditioner compressor is ok, but black or brown liquid could be a motor oil, red one could be the power steering fluid, while clear or brown slick liquid could be a brake oil. Coolant liquids are slimy green, yellow or pink in color. These fluids are bad for your car’s health and also poisonous to animals, so keep a regular check of such fluids leakage.
37. Not Cooling the Engine
Most vital for turbocharged cars, it’s crucial that after a long drive, you drive at a low RPM for some minutes before shutting off the engine completely. This helps the turbocharged engine to properly cool off, giving it some time to reduce the engine temperature, and increase the lifespan of your car.
38. Hard Steering
Taking sharp turns at high speed can badly damage your vehicle. This aggressive maneuvering puts stress on the car’s tires, creating uneven wear and tear, and also leads to premature tire failure. It also puts on excessive force on the suspension system, this includes the shocks, springs, and struts of your car, in turn degrading your car’s handling and smooth riding capability.
39. Forgetting About Wax
Many people overlook the importance of waxing for their vehicles. Waxing your car for a few times can place a vital impact on the paint. This wax coating acts as a shield, and protects your vehicle coating and paint. The wax absorbs most of the dirt particles, keeping the paint intact.
40. Misusing All-Purpose Cleaners on Interior Surfaces
All-purpose cleaners interior for car’s might be a good fix, but it is also a common mistake that can damage the delicate surfaces of the vehicle. These cleaners often have harsh chemicals that are sensitive to automotive interiors, such as vinyl, and leather. Frequent use of such products can lead to drying, discoloration, and cracking of the surfaces.
