Servicing & Repair
I Know Cars Need Servicing But I Don't Understand When or Why...
Servicing your car regularly is essential if you want it to be reliable and safe to drive.
Although modern cars don't need servicing as often as older ones, it's still very important. Failing to service your car on schedule will make it less reliable, less safe and can even lead to really expensive things going wrong - like engine failure due to running out of oil.
A service is made up of two different types of activity:
- Routine maintenance - tasks that are known to be necessary, like changing the oil and replacing the air filter
- Preventative checks and maintenance - finding out what else might be faulty or worn out. This includes looking for leaks and checking over your car's brakes, exhaust system and other key areas to make sure they are in good order.
If your brake pads are worn out, for example, a service will find this and you will be asked it it's ok to replace them.
How Often Does My Car Need Servicing?
All cars have recommended service intervals - these are set by the manufacturer and tell you how often you should have your car serviced. Typically, they might say "every 12,000 miles or 1 year" - or something similar.
Different cars have different requirements and petrol and diesel engines need different servicing, too.
You can normally find full details of the recommended service intervals in your car's service manual. However, as a general rule, most mechanics recommend that you should get your car serviced once a year - even if you haven't done 'enough' miles.
The reason for this is simple - a year is a long time to go without any safety checks or a change of oil. Cars are complex machines and suffer from age-related wear and tear. They are also often exposed to bad weather, salt, bad road surfaces and vibration - all of which can cause problems over time.
How Do I Find A Trustworthy Garage To Service My Car?
Finding a garage you can trust to do good work and charge you fairly can be difficult - especially (let's be honest) if they can tell that you don't know much about cars.
That's not to say that all garages are crooks - the majority are not, but it's hard to tell what a fair price is when you don't understand what's required. Likewise, it's hard to be sure that the garage have done the work properly when you don't understand what they've done.
That's why we recommend Nationwide Autocentre's UK-wide network of AA-approved service centres. Nationwide Autocentre offers fixed price servicing and MOTs to suit all types of car.
The Nationwide Autocentre website allows you to put in your postcode and car registration number and then shows you the locations of your nearest centres and service prices specific to your car.
These service prices are fixed and are very competitive - especially if you are an AA member, as you are then eligible for the following discounts:
- Servicing - 15%
- MOTs - 33%
- Repairs - 5%
You can also book everything online in just a few minutes - all you need to know is your car's registration number.
All Nationwide Autocentre garages are AA approved and offer a full range of service options to suit all standard cars. It has more than 200 garages around the UK and offers honest, consistent and reliable service at all of them - as endorsed by the AA.
You can visit Nationwide Autocentre's website by clicking here
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