Checklist before you Leave for a Road Trip
Taking a road trip? Hold on for a moment. No matter if your trip is for pleasure or work, you definitely don’t want it to be a miserable one. Anything that goes wrong on a trip ruins the mood as well as the trip. So, you need to avoid such unforeseen circumstances to occur.
For this, you have to follow some simple steps. Before you embark on your road trip, make sure your car is actually prepared for it. Have a quick test of your car and check if anything is wrong and needs to be made up. That’s why we say, “Prevention is better than cure”. Prevent unwanted problems than curing the situation in future.
If you’re confused about what to check and what not, here’s brief discussion regarding the same:
Review your car maintenance schedule
You should check if you’ve looked after your car lately and in case you haven’t, you ought to look for things that are needed to be done for your car. If confused, seek the owner’s manual for help and find the maintenance schedule recommended for your car. Look for online car manual if the physical one has disappeared.
Check the lights of Your Car
You don’t want to invite miserable conditions while driving at night or misty weather, that too at a place completely unknown to you. So, check the headlights, indicators, brake lights and fluid lights of your car. If needed, send the car for repairs.
Oil and coolant check-up
A good level of fluid is a must and you have to be aware of this concern. Make sure that you’ve got the right fluid for your car and that you’ve got enough of it. Stopping on a desolated road because of fluid issues is the least that you want on a road trip.
Check the Tyres and Air pressure
Being the most important part of a vehicle, any problem regarding them cannot be ignored. They should be in tip-top shape. For this, you should check the tread depth and replace it, if needed. Also, the surface of the
should not convey any hints of damages, bubbles or inflections. Tyre pressure is also to be inspected to verify if they are underinflated.
Check the leaks
If the fluid levels of the car are okay and you’ve got the right fluid for
your car, you should also check the leaks once. Look for leaks from various components and hoses underneath your car. If you notice oil or coolant on the floor of your garage, waste no time and call a technician for expert inspection.
Before-the-ride check Battery
You should see if the battery terminals on the side of the battery have corrosion. Usually, the positive post is found to have more corrosion than the negative one. Although corrosion is normal yet there should not be too much of it. Clean it off if you find a lot of corrosion. Take off both the terminals and clean properly using baking soda and water.
These were the basic things that you need to check before you embark on your road trip. You want your trip to be memorable and not miserable. So, follow this checklist and you’re done!
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