Cars are the second largest purchase people make after houses but the costs don’t stop after purchase. Owning one also has been the second largest household expense. The comfort it brings has made it a necessity and therefore, having a running car is essential to many people. Irrespective of how much it would cost them.
Having a car does not mean you have to exhaust all your savings to get it running. Here are few tips to help you save costs in maintaining your cars:
- Drive sensibly: The easiest ways to waste fuel is by speeding, rapid acceleration, and hard braking. Most drivers are used to doing one or more of this. Such aggressive driving uses up your fuel by 33%. These habits increase the cost spent on fuel.
- Stop idling: Turn off the engine of your car if you are parked and waiting or in a heavy traffic. Turning on the ignition of your car without movement uses up a quarter to half-gallon of fuel per hour. Restarting your vehicle in the event of the same circumstance, only takes about 10 seconds worth of fuel, which does not increase your expenditure in any way.
- Get the right motor oil: Most drivers do not know the essence of using the right motor oil for their cars. Using various kinds of motor oil for your car does not in any way benefit it even though it might save cost at the time. Most of these motor oil types cause more harm than good. Using the right oil prevents the metal surfaces in the engine from causing rapid friction. It is advised to use the right motor oil as recommended by the manufacturer of the vehicle. Motor oils that are labelled “energy conserving” have been proven to be good for cars too. The wrong use of motor oil uses up your fuel by 1%-2% because of increased friction in the engine.
- Make use of maintenance devices: There are several devices that can help save the cost of maintenance. Some of which are:
- A Vehicle Tracking Solution provides you with all the necessary information you need about your vehicle: Location Monitoring, Trip Reports, Geo-fencing, Harsh Braking Alert, Ignition Alert and many more. This would give you all the information you need to know about your car especially when it is not being driven by you. With this information, you can make smart cost effective decisions about your vehicles.
- Using a speed limiter helps put you in check and in a case where you have a driver, it puts him in check too. More than the fact that a speed limiter would help you cut down the expenditure on fuel, it also cautions your speed. Hence, helps you drive safely.
- The cost of car parts is daily on the increase. This includes the car glass windows too. Use anti-shatter film to protect your car windows. Save yourself from hurt, theft, and cost of replacing them if smashed.
- You can calculate your fuel use by getting a Fuel Monitoring Solution. This would help you have an accurate knowledge of fuel used and cost expended on fuel. It also helps you easily detect if your fuel tank is leaking or fuel is being stolen from your car.
- Maintaining a car is cumbersome, maintaining more than one can be difficult to bear. With a lot of information to know to enable you make decision about your cars, using a Fleet Management Solution would help store all the information you need about your fleet from your gadget, which enables you have access to it at any time. To properly maintain your fleet of 5-5000 vehicles, getting a fleet management application is a smart maintenance move.
- Use your car manuals: Your car manual is there to guide you on what your car needs and when. Reading your car’s manual will save you from being up charged when maintenance checks are being performed on it or when maintenance devices are being installed in it.
Are there any money saving driving tips you are using that is not listed above, kindly share in the comment section.