There is nothing more thrilling than packing everyone and everything into a Ford Explorer in Costa Mesa and then driving to an exciting destination. However, in order to enjoy the road trip and make it to their destination in one piece, a vehicle needs to not break down during the journey.
While driving a Ford Fiesta in Costa Mesa is a good way to help greatly reduce the chances of this ever occurring due to its incredible reliability, this can still happen if a driver fails to do one or several of the things on this list. With that said, here are the top tips for helping to avoid a vehicle breakdown on the side of the road.
Stick to the Service Plan
Every vehicle has a recommended amount of mileage and or time that it can go before it needs a service. This information can often be found in the owner’s manual of the vehicle and can easily be searched online. In addition to both of these sources, the vast majority of auto body shops will also provide the driver with a handy windshield sticker with a date and mileage count on it for when the vehicle should be brought back in for another servicing.
This information is not just a light recommendation. It is based off of decades of information gathering and statistical analysis in order to determine what the longest duration is that a vehicle can go before it can get serviced and not risk breaking down on the side of the road. If a driver ever treats the servicing guides as a small recommendation and frequently goes past the limits, then it can put their vehicle at a much greater risk of experiencing mechanical failures.
So if someone does not want to get halfway to their vacation destination and then be stranded while they wait for someone to come and tow their vehicle away, then they need to ensure that they are sticking to the servicing schedule.
Frequently Check Oil Levels
A vehicle requires many things to operate smoothly, but two of the most important things are gasoline and oil. Luckily, any modern vehicle makes monitoring gas levels incredibly easy by providing not only the traditional analog display of how much fuel is left in the vehicle, but also giving a digital mileage count for how many miles the vehicle can still travel with how much fuel it has.
Unfortunately, monitoring the level and quality of oil is not that easy. Most vehicles do not yet have the ability to accurately monitor the condition of the oil that is in the vehicle besides providing a mileage-based countdown of how close the vehicle is to needing an oil change. However, there are a lot of things that could drastically change this number without the vehicle picking up on it.
For instance, if a vehicle has developed a small oil leak, then this is not something that the vehicle will be able to warn the driver about. Instead, the oil will proceed to slowly leak out of the vehicle and reach dangerously low levels significantly faster than the vehicle would otherwise go through its oil supply. So even though it may have only been a couple of weeks since the vehicle last got an oil change, it could be in need of being topped up already if there is a serious oil leak somewhere in the vehicle.
The other issue that could pop up is that the oil has somehow been contaminated with some kind of debris. When this happens, it drastically brings down the quality of the oil and can end up damaging the vehicle as the debris passes through its system. That is why the driver needs to take it upon themselves to frequently check the condition of the oil.
Checking how much is left in the vehicle is quite easy and only requires them to lift out the oil dipstick and see what level it is at. While doing this they should also take note of the color of the oil, since oil that has gone through significant breakdown already will be a much different color than it is when it is first port in. New oil is a lighter color while oil that is used and down is going to be much darker and may appear almost black. If this is the case, then the need to ensure that they are getting their vehicle’s oil changed right away before heading out on any extensive driving trips.
Remove Any Unnecessary Items From the Vehicle
For many people, it can be quite tempting to keep items in a vehicle all year round. For example, many drivers put sandbags or other weighted items in the back of their vehicle in order to provide them with better traction during the winter time. However, if drivers are leaving these items in the back of their vehicles all year round, then it is putting their vehicles through unnecessary stress. Even things like keeping books, clothes, gym equipment, and more, in a vehicle is just adding more weight to it.
When a vehicle weighs more, it needs to put in more effort to do every single thing. Accelerating will require more power output from the engine, breaking will require more force distribution to be put onto the brake pads, turning a corner will put more pressure on the suspension system, and so on. What this is doing is breaking down the various parts of the vehicle at a much faster rate than they normally would. This will increase the chance that something fails during the middle of a drive.
That is why every driver should make it their goal to only put the necessary items in the vehicle at all times. It may require a little bit of extra work carrying something to their vehicle every few days, but their vehicle will thank them in the long run by avoiding having an unfortunately timed breakdowns.
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