Is My Car Ready for Summer?

Summer is officially here on June 20th.  Now is the time get outside to enjoy the open road and magnificent views. Being confident in your vehicle’s reliability can mean the difference in a fun Summer road trip and a miserable one. Here are some tips for summer maintenance that will keep your road trips safe and your vehicle reliable.

1. Inspect Shocks and Struts – Potholes and poor road conditions can cause unseen damage. Road repair takes months and sometimes never catches up with the damage from the previous Winter. Damage to shocks and struts aren’t usually noticed until you feel significant forward lunges and teeth chattering bumps. These need to be inspected and fixed before damage spreads to your suspension and possibly exhaust systems.

Whenever possible avoid driving through potholes. If you see no way around them slow down as much as possible to avoid damaging shocks and struts and your wheels and tires.

2. Test or Recharge Air Conditioning – Be ready for the coming heat.  Re-charge your air conditioning system and change out your in-cabin air filter to remove mold and mildew, odors and other allergens.

3. Refill windshield fluids and examine your wiper blades 

4. Inspect and or replace tires – Dependable tires are never cheap. An unexpected tire purchase in the middle of your road trip could cut it short.  So examine your tires regularly and, if needed, purchase new tires before the road trip starts.

Keeping up with regular, routine vehicle maintenance is the best way to insure your vehicle will keep running better for longer. The better you are at maintaining the less you will spend for an unexpected repair. Our 28-point maintenance inspection during each oil change can find problems which can be fixed before a break down occurs.