Home car maintenance checks to prevent expensive repairs

When it comes to your annual MOT, you might be dreading what sort of bill you may get at the end. Although the most an MOT can actually cost is £54.85 for a car or £29.65 for a motorcycle, the cost of any repairs required to make your vehicle roadworthy can add up so see the tips of how to choose the right motorcycle to avoid repairs.

One of the easiest ways to keep these repair costs down is by performing regular car maintenance at home. This way, you can keep on top of the easy-to-fix problems that can occur and cut these out of the MOT costs.

Improve Road Worthiness

One of the biggest factors that can cause expensive repairs is having a traffic accident, and this is something you need to try to prevent as much as you can. There are so many factors that play a part in this as much as possible, and you have to focus on what you can do to prevent this. First off, you need to plan and prepare for the event of any accident, as, no matter how careful you are, they can still happen. So getting up to date insurance and researching the best possible car accident lawyer would be good places to begin. You also then have to focus on improving and boosting the road worthiness of the vehicle, and this means testing out the key parts of it, as well as taking it for a drive to see how it handles, as well as other key factors as well. You have to make sure you do your best to improve this process as much as you can, and there are a lot of elements that will help you when it comes to assessing and improving your vehicle and making it better on the roads. This is a key step in helping to prevent the need for expensive repairs, as well as helping to ensure that your car stays as reliable and dependable as possible. There are a lot of elements that you need to keep in mind here, and this is one of the key factors.

Lights

Changing out broken lightbulbs around your vehicle can be a simple way to reduce maintenance costs by doing them yourself.

You should perform regular checks to ensure all your main lights are functioning – headlights, dipped, indicators, brake lights, reversing lights, etc. Without full visibility of the road, or other drivers having full visibility of your vehicle, it could lead to an accident.

Brakes

The proper functioning of your brakes is essential when on the road, so you need to keep them maintained to ensure you can emergency brake when required.

Check your brake fluid level and top it up if low – your vehicle handbook will give you further details on what’s required. It will also outline how often it should be changed.

You can also examine your brake pads to see whether they’re in good condition, or keep an eye out for warning lights. If you have the right tools and mechanical knowhow, you can change your brake pads yourself – otherwise, get a repair booked in for full peace of mind.

Oil

A vehicle’s oil levels are one of the five main causes of breakdowns which can lead to call out charges or repairs that could have been avoided.

Make sure your oil levels are between the minimum and maximum indicators on the dipstick and top up as required.

Tyres

Your tyre pressure and tyre tread both need to be in a suitable condition in order to be considered roadworthy. Topping up your tyre pressure is simple enough – many petrol stations have a pump which you can use.

Check you tyres using a tyre tread gauge or use the 20p test to ensure it’s sitting at 1.6mm. If your tyres don’t have sufficient tread depth then you can order new tyres and change them using an impact wrench.

Windscreen

Even small cracks in your windscreen could lead to costly repairs later down the road. If you leave them unattended, they could develop into longer cracks and lead to serious issues. Most comprehensive car insurance policies will have windscreen repair included as standard, so you can easily get this taken car of.

Any damage over 4mm within the driver’s view or 10mm across the swept area can be enough to fail an MOT – and it can also result in issues if you needed to claim on your insurance.

Taking these areas into consideration when performing your regular car maintenance will help to keep your overall repair costs down, as well as ensuring your car staying in top condition for as long as possible.

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