How to save money on car repairsThe biggest budget blunder you want to avoid at all costs is neglecting basic car maintenance.

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An interesting article on investopedia.com illustrates this very point. This article was also featured on yahoo.com.

The number one blunder listed on the article about the high cost of being cheap was Neglecting Basic Maintenance.

It is not uncommon to see customers paying several thousand dollars for a new engine after the original engine seized up due to the lack of engine oil. I have seen pictures of oil that has turned into a sludge, clogging up the entire inside of the engine and causing it to fail prematurely. You don’t want this to happen to you.

Lack of routine maintenance affects all aspects of your vehicle and will surely lead to something big breaking down that will cost you big time, down the road. Going cheap in the short term often costs you more in the long run.

At Martens Volvo Service Center we help you make small ongoing investments in regular service maintenance. For example, Volvo Factory Maintenance calls for a service every 7,500 miles; however, we recommend an intermediate, in between service every 3,500 miles for city driving.

The reason being that most of our customers live in the Washington DC area which is hard on car engines due to stop and go city traffic patterns and short trips of less than 10 miles. Short trips do not let your car engine warm up to required operating temperatures. Thus, the combustion process does not burn up all the fuel and a carbon residue is deposited in the piston grooves and valves.

For this very reason, Castrol Synthetic blend oil is recommended because it does not react to combustion and combustion by products to the extent that regular organic oil does. Another big advantage is that during cold winters Castrol synthetic blend oil maintains its viscosity (flow-ability of an oil). Regular oil will become thicker or less viscous on very cold nights and require your car battery to put out more crank amps to start up.

Secondly, Factory scheduled service at 7,500 mile intervals assumes that you are driving in perfect ideal conditions. This means highway miles, perfect driving habits such as no sudden acceleration or braking, engine running at normal operating temperature, a dust free environment, and no extreme summer heat and winter chills.

Thirdly, Volvo Factory Scheduled service does not include tire rotation, but if you drive an all wheel drive Volvo, you have to maintain even tread wear on all four tires for optimum performance;hence, you have to rotate your tires.

Finally, the reason why you require intermediate service at 3,500 miles is that your brake pads may not last the entire 7,500 miles.

The life span of your brake pads depends on your driving style, and the front pads usually wear out faster than the rear pads because they take the brunt for stopping the vehicle.

A new brake pad has 12mm (millimeters) of frictional material lining, and at 2mm you need new pads. The rule of thumb is that every mm counts for 1000 miles. When we rotate your tires we can tell you how many mm you have left on your brake pads.

Being cheap will leave you broke, so visit a Volvo Service Center for routine service.

sources

http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/112019/how-being-cheap-will-leave-you-broke?mod=bb-budgeting

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