All Car Owners Should Be Able To Do These Things

How To Do The Bare Minimum Of Car Maintenance In Six Easy Steps

Check Tires (Or “tyres” as the British incorrectly spell it.)

Tires are one of your car’s most important components. They are the only part that actually touches the ground (unless something has gone really quite wrong), and they affect just about every attribute of your car’s performance. So don’t cheap out when it comes time to buy new ones, and pay attention to the health of the ones you’ve got.

Make sure pressure is set to the car or tire’s specification, make sure that’s staying consistent (no leaks), and give your tires a physical inspection once in awhile to catch rot or damage sooner than later.

You’ve probably heard about the “penny test” where you place a penny in the valley of a tire tread to check the depth– if you can see all of Lincoln’s head, the tires are too worn. Your mileage may vary, but it’s even easier to tell if the sidewall is ok. Does it have cracks or chunks missing? No? It’s okay.

Check Oil

Being the lubricating lifeblood (and in some cases, cooling system) of your engine, you really want to make sure you don’t run out of this stuff.
Most cars have a dipstick at the engine that you can pull out, wipe off, stick back in, and inspect the tip of to see the current oil level. While the engine’s off, of course. There will be two little lines or markers on the tip of that stick– you want the dark liquid to be between them.

How much to add if it’s low? Google what your car needs specifically, but it often takes precisely one quart, a commonly sold single-bottle portion, to go from the bottom marker to the top “full” marker. You’ll want to add this in the big hole with the number “710” on it. Just kidding– that’s a little humor for the experienced mechanics who are hate-reading this. (Open your hood, you’ll get it.)

But pour carefully and slowly. An engine overfull with oil is in severe danger of destroying itself. As to what kind of oil you want; Google the owner’s manual if it’s not stickered on the that “710" cap!

Check Lights

Okay, here’s something even your five-year-old can do. In fact, it helps if you have another person to inspect your lights and see if they’re working since you can’t always park near a big mirror.

(Jalopnik.com)