Your responsibility as a car owner does not end at just buying a car. Car ownership involves a great deal of responsibilities and a person is a good car owner if he is committed to accomplish all the duties and responsibilities towards his car. Every good car owner would like his car to run smoothly, anytime or every time he gets behind the wheel. But, retaining the perfect performance of a car is only possible when you take the adequate time to perform the necessary scheduled maintenance on your car.

Scheduled maintenance is an essential part of car owners, but if they do not make it a part, owners could find themselves at mechanic’s place every now and then, spending a lot on costly repairs. Here is how you can perform a scheduled maintenance for your car.

• Oil Change: Most vehicle manuals advise to get the oil change done every three months or 3000 miles. This is of course a good advice, however, if you indulge in a great deal of aggressive driving or drive in stop-and-go traffic or on rough terrain, you may need to change the oil even sooner!
• Tire Rotation:Tire rotation needs to be done about every six months or 7500 miles. Wear on the tire sidewall can also be the indication of the need of a tire rotation. Unfortunately, many owners consider doing this only when they put snow tires on for the winter or when they change it to all-weather tires.
• Spark Plugs: This scheduled maintenance basically depends on the type spark plugs that car owners have. Because there are two types of spark plugs and owners with standard spark plugs may require to replace them every 12 months or 15,000 miles, while those with platinum plugs should be replaced at about 60,000 miles.
• Air Filter:Air filter should be replaced every year or every 15,000 miles. However, people who drive their vehicles in heavily polluted areas may need to replace the filter much sooner.
• PVC Valve: PVC valve should be replaced one time per year. Mechanics often advise to change this when the air filter change is done.
• Timing Belt: Before considering any alteration to the timing belt, go through your owner’s manual. Because, different engine manufacturers have different life spans for their timing belts, and it is important to change the timing belt at the right time as recommended by the manufacturer in order to avoid serious engine failure. However, the average life span of a timing belt is around 60,000 miles.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 9th, 2009 at 12:28 pm and is filed under Maintenance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.