Americans lack in car maintanence
I found an article on autoweek.com that talks about a study done in July by DriverSide.com and Kelton Research. The survey found that even though 90% of Americans think that they do everything right to keep their cars in great shape, they don’t at all. Actually according to the survey, only 41% of those that responded followed the scheduled maintenance plan from the manufacturer, 31% waxed their cars regularly (geez that truly seems high to me), and only 16% actually repaired dents and scratches in a timely fashion. Cracks in windshields and warning lights that go on in people’s cars were ignored quite often. The moral of the story is that people don’t do anything with their cars until there is a problem.
My neighbor is one of the 41% that always does the scheduled maintenance AND actually washes and waxes his cars often too, and maybe that’s why both of their cars have over 100,000 miles on them and you would never be able to tell. Anyways, driverside.com has added a diagnostic tool to their website to help the majority of us. It helps you to figure out the cause of the problem with your car and sometimes can even give you a how-to to fix the car yourself. If not, you can ask one of their mechanics a question online. This diagnostic tool was just launched this week and is free…..yes I said FREE. Actually when I just went and checked out the website, I signed up and added my car to “my garage” on the website to keep track on maintenance. Great idea, so pass the word on!