Why Car Servicing Matters

A clogged air filter costs you money. A missed suspension check costs you rather more.

Ever since the advent of the motor vehicle, or for that matter the advent of any mechanical device, routine maintenance has never been far from people's minds, whether they be the manufacturer or the end user. A mechanism once set in use will start to wear, and should that wear get to a certain level a breakdown is almost inevitable. This event can have repercussions ranging from the inconvenient to the catastrophic.

Take for example the failure to clear the filters on a tumble dryer. A clogged filter will slow the airflow through the machine and impair its performance, fraying the owner's nerves when an item of clothing is needed at short notice. At the other end of this spectrum, imagine a linkage operating on the control surfaces of a commercial airliner where poor maintenance has led to the joints seizing in use, resulting in loss of control. At 30,000 feet and 400 mph it takes little imagination to foresee the consequences.

The same pattern in a car

In relation to the motor vehicle, the above situations repeat themselves almost exactly. A clogged air filter will not stop the vehicle from being used, but it will certainly reduce its efficiency and add to its running costs. The catastrophic scenario can involve a brake, steering or suspension component which, without regular servicing and a thorough inspection, can be missed until the component fails, leading to loss of control. At 70 mph, dire consequences abound.

No two cars wear at the same rate

Although component manufacturers engineer their products to have a long service life, no one can predict the circumstances to which those products will be subjected. A suspension joint on one car can have half the effective life compared with another, and that is not purely down to the miles covered.

The four wheel drive vehicle pulling a heavily laden trailer around will be subjected to a higher wear rate than the same model used for the half-mile school run twice a day, and their service requirements are as different as chalk and cheese. The commercially used vehicle may well spend a lot of its time with the engine at its normal temperature, when the degradation of the oil is at its lowest; on the other hand the loads placed on steering, suspension and brakes can be quite high because of its daily workload.

The case for safety inspections

There is a case, therefore, for the routine recommended servicing to be punctuated by safety inspections along the lines of an MOT test. This should identify wear in components that, if ignored, could lead to failure at a most inopportune moment. By following a routine such as this, repair and maintenance can be planned and alternative transport arrangements made in advance — far better than a vehicle being disabled and requiring garage attention like a bolt from the blue.

Maintenance, then, is a series of procedures calculated to keep the vehicle operating at its optimum, making any time in the garage as minimal as possible. This maintenance does of course have a cost, but in the long term will usually have a good payback factor in long service life and higher resale value.