A Simple Daily Approach To Car Inspection
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Your car is a considerable investment. It’s important to take care of it and keep up with routine maintenance to keep it running for the long haul. One crucial element of this regular maintenance is inspecting your car regularly, so you can catch any potential problems before they become big ones. We’ll go over some tips on how to check your vehicle without breaking the bank!
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Use A Systematic Approach
A fairly detailed inspection is a daunting task for most people. However, through using a systematic approach, light work can be made of this dreadful task. It all starts when you approach your vehicle – lookout for any objects underneath the car, including general bodywork.
Thereafter, try to see an imaginary vertical line slowly creeping from the driver’s door of your car, anti-clockwise around the whole vehicle. Everything this line touches is something that needs to be checked.
Once at the driver’s door, the key is to think ahead, start by opening the bonnet and turning on your hazard indicator lights, including your headlights. This will allow you to start with the driver’s door and move on to the front fender and wheel before reaching the car’s front. Once at the front, you can check your lights and components under the hood. This process is followed until you’ve made your way all around the car.
Identify Critical Items To Check
Some aspects of your vehicle are higher priority items to check than others. For example, checking if you have engine oil would be a higher priority than checking for minor scratches. Or checking for number plate damage would be a higher priority than a fuel hatch locking mechanism not working, since having damage to your number plate could lead to a potential fine, so reaching out to number plate suppliers would be a key priority. The key of a pre-use inspection is to identify any possible harm-causing areas and prevent damage incidents.
Here are key aspects to check:
- Seat Belts
- Mirrors
- Windscreen And Wipers
- Tyres And Wheels
- Brakes
- Lights
- Indicators
- Engine Oil
- Engine Coolant
- Fan Belt
- Coolant Caps
- Number Plates
- Fuel Cap
- Emergency Kit
Other aspects like bodywork or light mechanical work can be dealt with later; here, you are trying to inspect the integrity of the operation of your vehicle.
Don’t Over Complicate The Process
Overcomplicating the process of pre-use car inspection can lead to taking shortcuts in the future. This could be dangerous and have deadly consequences. Instead, keep the process short, sweet, and to the point by systematically inspecting critical areas of your car, as mentioned earlier. This will allow you to find any immediate problems with your car and help you budget for any potential repairs that may need to be carried out a bit later.
Determine Which Aspects Need To Be Checked Using Instruments
When it comes to checking aspects of your vehicle, such as tyre tread and engine oil, you’ll need to use instruments to carry out the job correctly. Tyres, for example, need to be checked by looking for the tread wear indicator embedded in the tyre tread. If you don’t know what to look for, you might misjudge the tread left on your tyres. Similarly, engine oil is typically measured on a dipstick, and a pressure gauge tests tyre pressure pressures. So as you go through your car, identify the areas that require instruments to measure and study how to use those instruments correctly.
In conclusion, a vehicle can be a considerable investment, and it makes sense to ensure that you get the best out of your car. Inspecting daily for potential issues is an easy way of doing just that while also helping with saving money on future repairs.