Maintaining your vehicle

Maintenance/Repairs
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I saw this article called 11 Money wasting car repairs. Some are valid, some are NOT.

#1 - Chip and crack replacement is usually covered for FREE by your insurance company. I have repaired a chip a couple times myself. Not difficult, but why bother since I can get it done for free.

#2 - Cabin air filter. Agreed. Most cars it’s extremely simple. My son’s Mazda he use to own was a pain in the butt.

#3 - Replacing spark-plugs yourself. 4-cylinder yes. V6 or V8 on a transverse mounted engine - difficult and back breaking. Take it to a professional.

#4 - Lube Job. Agreed. Haven’t seen zerks on any vehicle we’ve purchased since the mid 80’s.

#5 - Coolant replacement. The problem with doing it yourself is the spillage and potential contamination of ground water. My water supply is a well on my property. I take our vehicles to a mechanic that will do the job environmentally safe.

#6 - 3,000 mile oil changes. Agreed it’s too often. I’m not convinced the 10,000 mile oil changes are good though. I know 5k oil changes can keep a vehicle well past 300k miles (i’ve done it multiple times).

#7 - Cleaning Fuel Injectors. There are some good additives that will do a great job - IF NEEDED. Stick with a top-tier gas and you probably will never need this service.

#8 - Replacing a single tire is fine except on many AWD vehicles.

#9 - Front-end alignment. I live on a dirt-road, and it can be a nightmare during the spring. Getting an alignment really depends on the roads you travel and mileage. Drive on nice straight smooth roads all the time and you may never need an alignment. Every time I’ve had alignments the vehicle handled and drove fine, but the alignment was well out of specs.

#10 - AC recharge- Agree with article.

#11 - Tire balancing and rotation - Agree with article

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+1
That is an article from which a lot of people could learn some things that will save them money, and–overall–I am in agreement with the article.

As to oil changes, I agree that 10k oil changes are not a good idea–unless perhaps someone does mostly long-distance driving. But, even then, I wouldn’t take a chance on that type of extended interval.

My PHEV vehicle’s specified oil change interval is one year/10k miles, and that would probably be okay in light of the fact that the IC engine is run only occasionally, and when I run the gas engine it only takes place on long highway drives. So, I do have the oil changed every 6 months/5k miles, even though the IC engine probably ran for no more than 1.5k miles during that 6 month period.

As to wheel alignments, I agree that handling is usually not noticably affected when the alignment is “off”, but when I first got my 2011 Outback, I immediately noticed that it seemed to need constant steering correction. A visit to the dealership confirmed that one of the rear wheels was waaaay off, probably as a result of being whacked on something when it was offloaded from the car carrier. A free alignment normalized the handling.

Regarding periodic rebalancing of tires, I think that a lot has to do with the quality of the tires. That same 2011 Outback came from the factory with some sort of Continental tires, and they produced a nasty vibration in the steering wheel when I was cruising in the 65-70 mph range. The dealership rebalanced them, but it didn’t really help very much. A few months later, they got a new Hunter GSP 9700 road force balancer, and that eliminated the vibration… temporarily. Those Continentals couldn’t “hold” a balance for more than a few thousand miles, at which point they would balance the tires again on that Hunter machine, and it would again be okay for only a few thousand miles. Lather, rinse, repeat, ad infinitum…

My theory is that those Contis were out-of-round, so I dumped them when they got down to 5/32, and their replacement Michelin Defenders proved to be totally different. I never again had to get a rebalance once I switched to Michelins!

As to A/C recharging, I have never needed to have this done, even up to 11 years/145k miles. But, by contrast, my brother had a '90s vintage Camry that needed an A/C recharge every year.

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The AC doesn’t need to be recharged if there aren’t any leaks.

Tester

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Which is what the article said.

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Interesting. You can replace a single tire on many AWD vehicles without even shaving the new tire to match the tread dimension of the other 3 tires? .

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Name these many vehicles please…

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Once again george is posting without reading . He did not see the word except

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Yeah I may have read Georges post wrong also… lol… oops, sorry George…