As a busy mum I rely on my car. It’s more than it just getting me from A to B. It’s a safe way to travel with my children and without it I simply wouldn’t be able to have them come and stay with me. Where we live is just too far away from their Dad’s and their school to get there via any other route. Trust me I’ve looked. It’d be over an hour on a couple of buses and a train to do the journey any other way. When you compare that to 20-odd minutes in the car it’s a bit of a no-brainer really.
The thing is thought that cars can – and unfortunately do – go wrong. There are some problems that you can not guarantee against, but having a regular maintenance schedule for your vehicle is key to avoiding some of the problems that you might encounter.
The main preventative thing that we do is make sure that my car is serviced each year, and that checks are done as to the health of the battery, and making sure that the tyres are fit for purpose in whatever season it is. Book your car servicing in Dewsbury online for free or visit Ossett Tyre House today.
Everyone knows that winter mornings can mean having to leave a few minutes early so that you can scrape the ice off the car first. But these winter mornings can also be the ultimate test for your car battery. If it’s not in the best of health then you could get that unfortunately silence when you’re expecting to hear the engine turn over first thing in the morning. Trust me – standing there cold trying to work out whether you’ve got some jump leads, and which of the neighbours is going to be most obliging in a morning isn’t what you want to be doing. Especially not when you have a couple of kids asking if it means you’re going to be late for school!
I made the mistake recently of not going and getting a dodgy looking tyre on my car checked quickly enough. I had seen it losing pressure several times and had even been to the local garage to top up the air levels on a couple of occasions. One particular evening I was heading to collect my daughter from Brownies, whilst ironically thinking to myself that I needed to go and get it seen to, when I heard that awful noise that tells you that you’ve got a flat tyre. Luckily I was able to pull in safely, but it was several hours before I managed to get it sorted. In that time there was a bit of a logistical nightmare to ensure that someone picked my daughter up on time and got her home for me. The moral of the story is definitely to be ahead of yourself with things like this.
If you do a lot of winter driving I also definitely recommend talking to your local garage about whether or not winter tyres, or an all weather tyre, are most suitable for you. The difference they provide in driving experience in colder winter temperatures is immense.
The other thing that you need to make sure you do is book your car in for its annual MOT test. Not only is this a legal requirement for cars over a certain age, but it’s also an excellent way of ensuring that it is road worthy. It might not pick up every problem, but I know my last one flagged a couple of things as advisories that I was able to get sorted before they turned into real problems.
Trust me when I say that it’s better to be safe than sorry when it comes to your car. Not only do you want to ensure that you are driving your family around safely, but you also want to make sure you’re saved as much inconvenience as possible when you rely on your car as part of family life.
Photo by Randy Fath on Unsplash
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