Silly Car Mistakes that Risk Your Life
Everyone wants to cut their car costs especially at the moment, but could stopping servicing your car cost you more than you think?
With petrol costs rising constantly at the moment, we’re all looking for ways to cut a bit off the cost of running our vehicles, but some motorists are gambling with their lives when they cut their costs it seems.
According to a survey carried out by SwiftCover more than 750,000 car owners are thinking about not getting their annual service done this year as a way of saving some money. The problem is that if you don’t service your car, you can miss spotting potentially serious problems that may put you and your passengers at risk.
A well looked after and regularly serviced car is much less likely to break down, and breakdown’s can be expensive. Another reason to keep the car serviced is that it will run smoothly for longer and will be easier to sell when the time comes.
We reckon that instead of skipping your service, you can cut costs in different ways by making the servicing more affordable.
Shop around
don’t just stick with the garage you always go to or the dealer you bought the car from, get quotes from different places and check out independent as well as franchised dealers. If you live in an area which is expensive, consider getting your car serviced while you’re visiting a family member or friend who lives in a cheaper region for example.
Negotiate
Research the costs, check quotes, make sure you know what the replacement parts will cost and then use that as a bargaining point. Use the first quote as a baseline and then ring round other places and see if they can offer you a better price.
Buy the parts yourself
Sometimes it’s cheaper to have work done if you buy the parts yourself and then ask your mechanic to just fit them. Mechanics will have specific places they look and can’t really afford the time always to search for the cheapest option, but you can.
Do it yourself
Get some books from the library, take a course, talk to friends who are petrol heads, and learn. Checking oil pressure and tyre pressure for example is quite easy, and as a minimum it will give you a better idea of what the garage is trying to charge you for. Online you’ll also find videos of how to perform a service on various cars, but be careful about doing this unless you do know what you’re doing. Yes saving money is good, but you still need to make sure your car is safe.