Bringing your car to an auto repair shop can be stressful because it often can be a pricey endeavor, especially if you aren’t taking regular care of your car and bringing it into the shop for regular check ups. In our first part, we covered some tips for taking care of your car’s maintenance and making sure that you save some money in what is normally an expensive process.
Here are some additional tips to keep in mind:
- Avoiding duplicate labor charges. Depending on the repairs that need to be done, you can actually ask the mechanic to kill two birds with one stone. For instance, if the mechanic needs to remove a bunch of parts to do a certain repair, and that could actually help you fix another issue that’s been occurring, you can address it in one fell swoop. To get savings, you’ll need to request a reduced labor charge for each separate part replacement in your repairs.
- Listen to the warnings. Something clunking around? Car making a weird noise every time you step on the brakes? Lights flashing on your dashboard? These are all warning signs that you’ll want to heed, lest you end up with major troubles down the line that you are a lot more costly. If your Check Engine light comes on, make sure that you actually go and get it checked out with a professional, even if you suspect it’s nothing. The worst case scenario is that you get whatever happened fixed, but the best case scenario is that you prevent some major damage.
- Do it yourself. When possible, try to learn what you can do to fix up your car yourself. Things like changing wiper blades or an air filter are relatively easy and inexpensive to do yourself. In fact, you’ll likely save money by not bringing those issues to a mechanic because they’re relatively straightforward.
- Buy discount parts online yourself. Like doing it yourself, you can purchase some parts off the internet to fix up your car yourself and fix small broken pieces and issues yourself. Sites like AutoBarn or Amazon have parts that you can purchase yourself to replace. When you’re looking at parts, make sure to check them against any costs that the mechanic might charge to make sure you’re actually saving.
- Find a ding specialist. Everyone ends up with dings and little scratches on their car, but it’s usually way too much to pay for at a mechanic who will want to sand down your car and repaint it to fix those spots. Instead, you can find someone who focuses on dings and small scratches in particular to help you.
