How to save money on car maintenance?
By Bardahl • The 3/5/2025 • 5 min reading
This may surprise you, but the first tip for reducing your car maintenance costs is... to have your car serviced regularly! Indeed, leaving your car abandoned to save money is a false good idea. But this maintenance can be done partly yourself. With cheap parts purchased online? The answer is later in this article.
Do your maintenance regularly
Regularly maintaining your vehicle is beneficial in many ways. For starters, regular maintenance will prevent you from having to replace expensive parts that malfunction. Regular maintenance keeps your engine in good condition. Healthy engines also mean controlled fuel consumption. And that, in itself, means savings.
Regular maintenance also helps you maintain a service history. This is very important to ensure you replace the right parts, at the right time, and not too often unnecessarily.
When we talk about maintenance, we also think about cleaning your vehicle, both inside and out. But also about cleaning the engine's internals. How? By using additives like "Bardahl 5-in-1 Degreasing," which, when used once or twice a year, will help reduce engine clogging.
Doing the maintenance yourself? Yes, under certain conditions...
If you're a bit of a DIYer, there are some tasks you shouldn't be afraid of. Think of replacing a light bulb, windshield wiper blades, brake pads, and so on. If you have the space and the right equipment, why not try an oil change as well? This will save you money on labor...
Even if you're less handy, you can still perform some routine tasks, such as filling the windshield washer fluid reservoir, for example! This is the kind of operation that some professionals charge excessively high prices for. Avoidable costs, then...
While there are more and more tutorials of all kinds on the web, remember to follow one rule: don't overestimate your skills! Replacing a belt or clutch requires the right tools and, above all, some mechanical skills. If you try to save too much money by overestimating your mechanical skills, you risk breaking your engine (or hurting yourself), which would be bad for your bank account...
Buying parts cheaper online? Beware of the pitfalls...
"Don't overestimate your skills," we wrote above. If you think you'll save money by buying your parts online, beware! It's tempting, but it could be a false good idea. The web is full of cheap parts of very poor quality. Therefore, only do it if you have a good level of knowledge and with trusted websites.