Whether you own a recently-acquired jet-black luxury sedan or a van that has been in your family for a decade, keeping your vehicle in perfect shape is essential. It cost you a significant amount of money, and you already know it’s an investment worth caring for.
Though regular vehicle care and maintenance significantly contribute to its longevity, some driving habits could be ruining your car. And replacing a vehicle earlier than expected due to poor maintenance and bad driving habits could cost you a lot of money. Besides, reckless driving could result in lawsuits, something any competent St Louis Uber accident lawyer advises against. Here are safe driving habits that could minimize instances of vehicle wear and tear.
1. Touch the gearstick only when necessary
Your driving instructor told you that you should always keep your hands on the wheel. However, most drivers have developed bad habits, and that includes resting a hand on the gearstick while driving. What they don’t know is that this tendency isn’t good for their vehicle’s transmission.
Note that the gearstick is directly connected to a selector fork. The selector is specially designed to make contact with the rotating collar for a limited amount of time. Resting your hand on the gearstick for a long time means you are likely to apply pressure on the selector fork, resulting in increased wear and tear.
2. Take it easy with your car breaks
Grinding your car brake pads continuously isn’t a good habit. In fact, you may end up replacing the car brakes more frequently. Besides, contiguously riding your vehicle’s brake pedals results in increased wear and tear to the car’s braking systems.
3. Warming up your vehicle or leaving it idling
Today’s engines have adequate lubrication and don’t need the warm-up sessions. However, if you’re one of those drivers who like their cars’ seats and interior a little bit toasty in the morning, keep the warm sessions at minimum. Note that most engines are not designed to be left idling for a long time. Otherwise, impurities buildup is likely to occur in the spark plugs, something that will make them inefficient. Besides, leaving your engine idling is a waste of gas.
4. Baking your car’s dashboard
If you always think that the cardboard sun shades are effective only in keeping the vehicle cooler inside, that’s just part of what they can do. They can keep your vehicle’s dashboard from cracking, blistering, fading, and eve getting damaged by sun rays.
5. Avoid short runs
While short distances are given for specific fleets, they’re also very harsh on your vehicle’s engine. In case you’ve drivers taking extremely short trips, it’s recommended to remap and combine routes to avoid the wear and tear associated with short runs.
Generally, short distances are bad for engines because the engine oil doesn’t get enough time to boil to a temperature high enough to clear the moisture inside. This means it’s easy for the engine oil to gum up like tar.
