Every car needs maintenance, but you don’t always know when to take it to the shop. Discover four ways to know when you need a tune-up or a larger repair.
1. Regular Servicing
As a rule of thumb, bring your car to the shop every three years or 3,000 miles, whichever comes first. Your car may follow another schedule, like six years or 5,000 miles. You can find this information in the owner’s manual or online.
Additionally, take your car in every two years or 30,000 miles for major inspections. Though annoying to take your car in when nothing seems to be wrong, these maintenance checks often keep away huge, expensive, and preventable problems.
2. Strange Noises
Hearing and responding to a strange sound early can be a difference of thousands of dollars in repair. Common warning sounds are screeching, rattling, squealing, and ticking.
Screeching usually means your serpentine belt is loose or needs replacing, while rattling could be a problem with your exhaust system. Squealing typically means your brake pads are wearing out, and a ticking sound often means your oil is low.
Most of these are inexpensive and easy fixes if you catch them soon enough but can easily become expensive repairs if you wait too long. These are not the only noises you should watch for. Any suspicious noise means you need to have a professional look at your car as soon as possible.
3. Lighted Dashboard
Your dashboard is designed to give you quick information about the status of your car. The lights are productive only if you know what they mean, so check your owner’s manual to make sure you know what your car needs to tell you. This can be as simple as a seatbelt light indicating that you forgot to click in your seatbelt or other lights showing more specific functions of your car.
Perhaps the most important of all the lights, the check engine light is also the most vague. All it means is that something is wrong, so you need to find what the problem is. Each time your car has a problem, it flashes the check engine light and creates a code that the mechanics at a repair shop can read and decipher.
This light could indicate a relatively harmless problem or the need of a major fix. Since you don’t know until a mechanic reads the code, take your car in immediately just in case.
4. Impacted Driving
Some car problems are so severe that they greatly affect your driving and make you unsafe on the road. A few of these issues are easy to recognize as soon as you get behind the wheel.
If your car cuts off while driving, then it needs a mechanic. Though your car may seem to have a dry battery needing a jump, it might have a problematic alternator. This will impact your driving even after you get your battery running and your car may cut off again.
If you notice your steering wheel shaking as you drive, then you may have an alignment issue, which can only be fixed in the shop. Nothing in your car is designed to shake or jiggle, so if you see something moving that should be still, you likely have a problem.
Ready to talk to a mechanic? At Powers Transmission, we offer all types of auto repair at three different storefronts in Lexington and Nicholasville, Kentucky. We have over 42 years of experience fixing cars and keeping drivers safe on the road. Contact us, and we can help whether your car needs small maintenance tune-ups or large repairs.