New Year’s Resolutions For Every Car Owner
Happy New Year from Hollingsworth Auto Service! Of course, the new year is a great time to set new year’s resolutions to help better yourself throughout the year.
While making resolutions to improve your health and overall lifestyle are great, adding a few for your vehicle can add even more benefits for you everyday. After all, you use your vehicle everyday, right?
Here are our six care care new year resolutions:
1. Pay Your Vehicle a Bit More Attention
Keeping up with car maintenance can be a pain, but when you don’t keep up with it bigger problems can arise. And those aren’t cheap. The most important car maintenance to keep up with are oil changes, fluid checks, tire care, brake pads, and your car’s air filter. By regularly checking your car’s fluid levels and replacing them as necessary, you can ward off many car repairs. Check your motor oil and washer fluid monthly and check steering, transmission and brake fluids at oil changes.
The easiest way to pay your vehicle more attention is to commit to visiting your mechanic for regular oil changes and a general inspection. Follow your owner’s manual recommendations and make calendar reminders on your phone for service noting to have all fluids, tire pressure and air filter checked at each visit. It is also a good idea to have your brakes checked and tires rotated and inspected too.
2. Learn To Do Some Basic Maintenance
Why not make it a new year’s resolution to learn how to do some basic vehicle maintenance yourself? While there are some maintenance tasks that should be done by a skilled mechanic, there are simple tasks you can do by yourself to keep your car maintained this year.
Start with something small, like learning to replace your windshield wipers. It usually needs to be done twice a year and is important for road safety. Instead of finding time to go to the store or waiting for an oil change to do it all at once, order the wiper blades on Amazon for your vehicle and simply swap them out in your driveway.
Some other car maintenance you can learn to do yourself is change the oil, check the tire pressure and rotate tires, change the air filter, and maintain your car’s battery. It is pretty satisfying to do these easy tasks and it will save you some money.
3. End Distracted Driving
Do NOT text while driving! This is extremely careless. If you must use your phone on the road, use a hands-free device and don’t take any calls during hazardous driving conditions. Don’t write down notes or look up things on your phone while driving. If you must place a call, stop the vehicle safely.
There are many things that can cause distracted driving such as:
- Reaching for something
- Changing the music
- Using an app
- Checking your GPS
- Taking a photo
- Checking email or posting to social media
- Eating and drinking
- Putting on makeup/grooming
Distracted driving is a problem that is completely preventable. All you have to do is put down the phone and pay attention. Make it a goal for the new year not to add to distracted driving statistics.
4. Be Courteous To Other Drivers
We all know driving can be frustrating especially with traffic jams, highway construction, and novice drivers. It’s easy to let that get to you causing road rage and potentially accidents. Make it a new year’s resolution to be patient with the people you share the road with.
Guess what? Everyone has somewhere they need to be and sometimes we just have to accept the fact that not every driver drives like they should. If you can let that roll off your back while driving you’ll find your commutes less stressful and safer.
A helpful tip to accomplish this: leave 10 to 15 minutes early for your destination so you can allow for traffic, construction, and bad drivers.
5. Learn to Change a Tire
Every car owner should make the resolution to learn how to change his or her own vehicle’s tire. Sure, calling roadside assistance is great, but what if you don’t have cell service, or your membership expired or the assistance will take hours to arrive? There might always come a time when you need to know this important yet simple skill.
Ask family members to join you for the lesson, especially if you have a new driver in the family. Showing your kids how to change a tire is a great teaching moment. Together you will all enter 2022 with a new skill and a safer ride.
Use this illustrated guide from the Art of Manliness
6. Keep Your Car Clean
For some of you keeping your car clean comes naturally, but some, it is a daily challenge. If your car is a mess going into the new year, take some steps to declutter your car and prevent future clutter.
First, remove everything from your car that you do not need. Do you need 3 water bottles, two jackets, the flip flops, and 8 hats?
Second, organize the important papers in your car and rid of the stuff you don’t need. Throw out old receipts, the last three years’ of registrations, and paid parking tickets. (maybe pay the unpaid? 😉 ) Then find the important documents like registration, proof of insurance, and owner’s manual and organize them in the glove box. Also take pictures of these docs and have them on your phone as backup.
Third, give your car a deep clean after you’ve decluttered it. Vacuum the seats and floor, clean the windows, dust the vents, wipe down all the surfaces and take it through a car wash. To stick to it, add a visit on your calendar for a full service car wash every other month. Make cleaning your vehicle routine instead of just something you do on a whim. Here is our guide to washing your car like a pro.
Lastly, one of the most helpful things you can do is to prevent the mess in the first place. Keep a small trash can or bag in your car and make for easy clean ups by keeping some wipes in the vehicle.
The whole point of a new year’s resolution is to improve your life. With the amount of time we spend in our vehicles, when you follow these care care new year resolutions to take care of your car and drive safely your life is most likely going to improve.
DO YOU NEED COLLISION REPAIR IN SAVANNAH, GEORGIA?
Hollingsworth Auto Service is a collision repair facility located in Savannah, Georgia. For over 100 years, we have been building relationships with our customers and have a proven track record of providing quality repairs for generations.
If you are looking for a Savannah auto body shop you can rely on, call Hollingsworth Auto Service today at: 912.234.6651
