When you buy a new car, whose interest does the car company have in mind when they’re making recommendations? They’re trying to sell you a car, of course, so hopefully you’ve done your research and gone in prepared. But what about when they give recommendations about how to care for the car and when to get maintenance?
The reality is that car companies want you to come back for a new car in about four or five years. If you don’t come back for ten years or more, there’s nothing in it for them. They want to be able to sell you another car and push the maintenance expenses off as long as possible. When you do buy another car, all of those expenses get pushed off on the next owner.
We see a lot of cars in the shop that didn’t receive regular maintenance because owners were misled on how often they’d need it. We see cars that only received two oil changes in 60,000 miles. This is why it’s essential to have service records when you purchase a used car – you need to know the potential problems you’re inheriting. Domestic cars like GMs, Fords, and Chryslers can only go about 15,000 miles, sometimes as high as 20,000, on their original oil as a brand new car. Even so, there’ve been several cars we’ve had to install new engines into that don’t even have 25,000 miles on them yet because someone skipped fluid service.
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Car manufacturers are typically looking out for their best interests, not the customer’s. It’s the nature of business. As a general rule, the best thing you can do for any car is to get regular service, including fluids, tire rotation, brake inspection, and overall vehicle inspection. You should do this every 5000 miles, especially with the road conditions here in Western Washington, where there are a lot of potholes, road debris, and steep hills. If you’re a commuter who gets caught in stop-and-go traffic, all the accelerating and decelerating does a number on your vehicle.
By servicing every 5000 miles, you’ll lower your overall operating cost. Don’t buy into the myth that a car comes with lifetime transmission fluid, either. That stuff will need replacing if you want the car to continue operating.
We recommend making an appointment at a fully ASE Certified garage rather than a quick lube. A quick-stop corner shop won’t do a full inspection and inform you when you need other work done. That means you can end up not servicing other elements that really need it, like your brakes, until damage starts to set in. You’ve taken a basic brake service, which typically ranges $300-$400, and you’ve turned that into a $600-$700 repair.
It’s always better to perform regular inspections and service on a vehicle, and preventative service is much cheaper in the long run than breakdown repairs.
