With the holidays fast approaching, many people are now planning their holiday vacations and road trips. In fact, research suggests that nearly 1 in 3 people will take a road trip during the winter holiday season. And with road trips comes the potential for car troubles.
If you plan to travel during this holiday season, follow this advice from All Valley Car Care to avoid car troubles on your upcoming road trip. All Valley Car Care is a local repair shop with two locations in Surprise and Gilbert.
Inspect Your Car’s Electrical System
Go out to your car and take a look at the electrical system. Test things like your heater, fuses, and all the other electrical components of your vehicle. Go through your car thoroughly. If you find something that needs repair, the best course of action is to get it repaired before your trips to not run into any unexpected expenses or breakdowns.
Check Under the Hood
While you are inspecting your electrical system, make sure that you look over the other components. Check your brake fluid, transmission fluid, and your oil. Make sure that you are not low on anything. You will also want to take a look at your records to see when the last time you had an oil change and your transmission flushed. If needed, have these done now before your trip.
Check Your Tires
If you are going on a long trip, you will want to make sure that your tires are in good order. Check the tread and the air pressure in each tire. If the tread is in poor condition, you should replace your tires before your trip. Check your records to see when your tires were balanced and rotated. Get this done before your trip if you have not done this recently. You will also want to make sure that you check out your spare tire. Look to make sure that it is properly inflated and in functioning order.
Build an Emergency Kit
If you do not have an emergency kit in your vehicle, prepare one now. Include jumper cables, antifreeze, oil, brake fluid, lights, and tire changing equipment. This will help to ensure that if you were to breakdown, you could address the issue efficiently.
Test the Safety Features of your Vehicle
Before going on your trip, you should take a look at the safety features in your car. Go to each seatbelt to ensure that it fastens correctly. Test your brakes out to make sure that they function correctly. You should also test out your horn, and make sure that your airbag light is not lit up.
Chris Holsinger of All Valley Car Care offers one more important piece of advice before embarking on a holiday road trip, “Check your windshield wipers and wiper fluids. When the rain falls, you don’t want to discover your wipers are useless. Bug hits can also really mess a windshield, so you’ll need a full fluid reservoir.”
By taking the time to inspect your car thoroughly before your holiday road trip, you can reduce the risk of frustrating car troubles.
