Shop Talk – January 2010

It’s a New Year!! I’m going to suggest that we all give a little consideration to maintenance on our vehicles. Commonly called PM, (preventative maintenance) is the practice of performing scheduled services on a vehicle at regular intervals so that the vehicle lasts not only till the warranty runs out, but often times 2 or 3 times longer.

This kind of PM greatly increases the longevity of the automobile, but also keeps its value higher for resale purposes. One other really important outcome of PM is you can schedule these services at your convenience.

The alternative is having to drag your vehicle to a shop, usually at the least opportune moment, to have something repaired that would have been found and serviced at significant savings.

Let me give you some examples: fluid changes of the drive train, replacement of normal wear items, and finding and repairing of various items that wear out due to no particular reason.

The fluid change example I always use is the automatic transmission. If you have ever paid for an overhaul of one, you know what I mean. Transmissions often cost $2,000 or more dollars to remove, overhaul and replace and with more regularity than not to fail at roughly 80k miles.

The PM alternative is to service the transmission every 30k miles for maybe 150 dollars, and we typically see 150k or more before repair is required. In fact, often the transmission will last the life of the automobile if driven normally. When I speak of normal wear items, I’m referring to things like tune parts, brake shoes or pads and so forth. These definitely have a design life that is variable due to driving habits, short , stop and go city type driving vs. mostly highway mileage where the vehicle gets up to full temperature for a period of time.

Either way, a person can determine (with assistance from your technician) a reasonable schedule for replacement of these parts, at your  convenience and that way you are not put into a bind needing something done right away because of a  job, or school, etc. Plus, I might add, it makes it a lot easier on your mechanic not being in a rush.

Things that wear out for no particular reason, and therefore don’t have a regular scheduled replacement interval are those things like steering parts, engine and drive train seals and gaskets, clutches and so forth. But if you are bringing your vehicle to a service technician, he or she will have an opportunity to inspect these types of things and advise you when attention is required.

Again, it’s a win-win situation for you, your automobile, and your friendly mechanic; and in the long run, you will save money, reduce your stress level and maintain a higher resale value. What’s not to like about that?

Enough said about that – have a wonderful and safe holiday season and the best wishes for the coming year from all of us at R and R Motors.

Happy Motoring, Ray
rayscartalk@yahoo.com