Maintenance
If you treat your car right, it will likely return the favor. Regular maintenance can help you stop problems before they happen, and prevent serious damage that could result from a worn part breaking. If you want to learn to care for your car, scroll down and check out our car maintenance guides. At it’s most basic, you should do the following for regular maintenance:
- Consult your owner’s manual: This manual is supposed to prepare you to own your vehicle, so it makes sense it would lay out how to maintain your car. It won’t tell you how to do maintenance tasks, but it will give you a schedule telling you when you need to do things like change your oil, filters, etc.
- Keep an eye on your oil: Motor oil lubricates your engine so it can operate efficiently without damaging itself, so it’s crucial to a working car. It is a good call to check your oil every couple of weeks or at least once a month to make sure your vehicle isn’t losing oil. If it is, top the oil off and start working on figuring out what’s up with the oil.
- Look at all other fluids too: Make sure that your vehicle’s other fluids are at proper levels to prevent any other problems before they arise from a lack of fluid.
- Check your tires: Tire tread generates the friction that keeps your vehicle firmly planted on the ground. Make sure they’re inflated and check the tread depth every month.
- Inspect belts and hoses: Rubber belts and hoses can grow brittle over time. Check to make sure these are okay, and replace them if need be.
You can get everything you need for regular maintenance at AutoZone. Find the right parts by entering your vehicle’s year, make, and model online or by using our VIN lookup where we match parts to your vehicle identification number.
