Shahe Koulloukian
Shahe Koulloukian, master automotive technician and founder of Mazvo Auto Car Care Center, Phoenix. He is author of Car Confidential: Insider Secrets About Automobile Ownership, Car Maintenance and Road Safety. Mazvo.com
When Should You Have Your Car Serviced?
There’s a lot of truth in the saying that if you take good care of your car, it will take good care of you. Regular oil changes, tire rotations and inspections…as well as prompt attention to any issues…will keep your vehicle running smoothly and help to maintain its value.
But knowing when to perform preventive maintenance on your vehicle is important. Wait too long, and you risk damaging your car or making it unsafe. Do it too early, and you are wasting money. The best way to keep your car in tip-top shape is to work from a vehicle maintenance schedule and keep careful records of each time it has been serviced.
When shopping for a vehicle, you may wonder about the average car maintenance cost per year for the vehicles you are considering. This figure—the True Cost of Ownership (TCO)—varies widely among vehicle types. Because vehicles require different levels of servicing at different stages of their life cycles, the following figures are based on purchasing the car new and owning it for three years. In other words, you take all of the maintenance costs over that three-year period (tire replacement, brake jobs, air filters and so on) and divide the sum by three.
Japanese and Korean vehicles (Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Kia, etc.). The average car maintenance cost per year for these rides: about $800 to $1,000. Most people don’t hit the high end of that range unless they’re using their cars to drive for a ride-share service like Uber.
American cars (Ford, Chevrolet, Buick, Jeep, etc.). Domestic vehicles cost a bit more to own, between $900 and $1,300 per year.
European vehicles (Audi, BMW, Volkswagen, Mercedes, etc.). Thanks to the high cost of parts and relative scarcity of qualified shops, these cars have the highest TCO—between $1,500 and nearly $2,900 each year.
Do you wish you had a car maintenance checklist or schedule? Actually, you do…it’s your owner’s manual. It is the absolute gold standard regarding regular maintenance. If your mechanic tells you that you need something preventative done, consult the manual and take its word over his/hers. Why? The manual was written by the people who built the car and understand its every nuance. Even if you take your vehicle to a dealership’s service center, follow the manual…not the mechanic. Despite having the logo of the manufacturer on the sign out front, the dealership’s service center is just a mechanic’s shop licensed to service that manufacturer’s vehicles for warranty. If the service advisor tells you that you need something done but your manual tells you you’re not yet due, says, “No, thanks, I’m just going to follow what the manufacturer says.”
If you don’t have your car’s owner’s manual: You can get it online. Just Google the make and model of the car along with “Maintenance Interval Schedule PDF” to get a printable document. In fact, for some vehicles, you may be able to print the entire owner’s manual, not just the maintenance schedule, for free.
The car maintenance schedule in your owner’s manual will express intervals both in mileage and in time. Example: You might be instructed to change a fluid at “35,000 miles or 50 months.” It’s implied that you do so at whichever of those milestones comes first.
These days, vehicles come with a plethora of sensors so that mechanical problems get communicated to you on the dashboard. But these warnings are not a substitute for preventive maintenance. If you wait until a warning light appears on your dash, the problem is already occurring.
Read through the car maintenance schedule and other information in your owner’s manual. Don’t assume that all cars follow the same schedule. Some vehicles have idiosyncrasies that can be a big mistake to ignore. Example: Some Hyundais and Kias are believed to consume excess oil. A recent class action lawsuit, which was dismissed, alleged that Hyundais and Kias with certain engines burned oil, potentially leading to greater and faster wear of the engine and components. To find a detailed list of the years, makes and models of the vehicles listed in the lawsuit, Google the words “Hyundai class action lawsuit oil models.” If you own one of those cars and follow the universal 3,000-mile-interval for oil changes, you could be in for a nasty surprise. Those manufacturers make no secret of this…it’s written into their owner’s manuals that you should check the oil level between changes. Remember: The dashboard light won’t come on until it’s already too late.
Besides oil changes, expect your car maintenance schedule to tell you when to have your tires balanced, rotated and replaced…change the engine and cabin air filters…change the coolant and other fluids…have the power steering serviced…flush the brake fluid…retorque the suspension…when to do a fuel-injection flush…when to have the air induction serviced…change the spark plugs…get a transmission service…and more. Some of these are “inspect and replace as needed,” and some are to be done in any case when the interval occurs.
Usually, at 15,000 miles you rotate the tires and do the cabin and engine air filters. Then, depending on your owner’s manual, other services are added on at 30,000 miles, still more at 45,000, at 60,000 and so on.
If you live in a place with four seasons, and especially if you drive an older vehicle, you may want to do some light maintenance when the seasons change. If you live in a place with very cold, snowy winters: You might switch to winter tires (often referred to as “snow tires”) or use antifreeze instead of coolant. Some people recommend changing wiper blades seasonally, although using a winter blade year-round is fine. A winter blade will perform fine in the summer, but a summer blade is insufficient for winter.
Caution: Don’t be fooled into getting an “A/C check” when warm weather comes around. That expensive “check” consists of nothing more than turning on the A/C and seeing how cold it blows. An A/C system requires no regular servicing unless you find that it’s blowing too warm.
Your car has lots of components and systems that you need to monitor. Example: Car batteries are good for only about three years. Your battery should have a colored sticker somewhere on it with the date it was put on the store shelf.
Most modern cars have a dashboard display alerting you when the air pressure in your tires is low. If you have an older vehicle or a newer one that seems to lose air pressure frequently, always go by the tire pressure recommended in the owner’s manual or written on the label inside the door jamb—not what’s written on the tires.When you bring a car in for servicing, no matter how many “points” of inspection the shop boasts, don’t expect a mechanic to check things such as dome lights, stereo and speakers, washer jets, window motors, sunroofs or convertible tops. Since such things are not in the car maintenance schedule, you must bring them to a mechanic’s attention if there’s a problem.
EVs also come with maintenance schedules, but they are much less involved because of the considerably smaller number of moving parts. That doesn’t make them any less sophisticated. EVs are essentially laptops on wheels, so much of what needs to be done happens electronically through updates to their apps. You still need to worry about tires, wipers, headlights and other basics, but for the most part, you just keep it charged and drive it. When there’s a problem, you’ll be notified on your app and instructed as to how to get it rectified.
