Monday, September 19, 2011

Maintenence on a car with over 100,000 miles?

I get my oil changed regularly. Any other simple maintenance things that will save me money in the long run? How often for a tune-up? How often to change the air and fuel filter? And what about a coolant flush/transmission fluid change? I'm hoping that some easy cheaper things will save me big bucks in the long run.Maintenence on a car with over 100,000 miles?Check the owner's manual for scheduled maintenance. You don't mention make, model, or year, but if the engine uses a timing belt there will be a replacement interval for it. many engines will be seriously damaged if the timing belt fails and typical replacement intervals are around 100K miles. Look up your car in the first source to be sure - if it is not listed you have a timing chain; if it is listed and has an asterisk the engine will be damaged if it fails.



This is a good time to review the intervals for coolant and transmission fluid change. Neglecting those can lead to big expense eventually. Also get the hoses checked and replace any hardened or bulging ones. Hose failure can cause serious overheating, which often warps the cylinder head(s) and causes the head gaskets to fail... big money.Maintenence on a car with over 100,000 miles?It depends, somewhat, on the age and condition of your vehicle. Late model cars with modern high voltage electronic ignitions, platinum spark plugs, and fuel injected engines, dynamically %26quot;tune%26quot; themselves, to a great degree, and the reduction of moving parts, and better materials mean you may only need to replace your plugs and spark plug wires every 60,000 or so miles.



Older cars, from the 70s and early 80s, often had semi-mechanical ignitions and fuel metering systems, with a rotating spark distributor and mechanical ignition points, as well as a carburetor for mixing fuel and air, all of which needed much more frequent adjustment and/or replacement, perhaps as often as every 10,000 to 12,000 miles. Follow your owner's manual service recommendations, for the type of driving that you do.Maintenence on a car with over 100,000 miles?The older type cars also had a little mechanical device to adjust the air gas mixture when the car isn't moving so the car doesn't stall which seems to be the subject of another question - http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index; Most older type cars need smogging when they have a lot of miles on them. If you don't have a car that dynamically smogs itself then you should figure out a way to do that. Then you could smog it even if it doesn't need smogging which typically improves the performance.Maintenence on a car with over 100,000 miles?Check here for a maintenance schedule:



http://www.edmunds.com/maintenance/selec