Preventative Car Maintenance

Preventative Maintenance at Atlantic Toyota of Long Island

Maintaining Your Toyota

Today, a well-maintained Toyota will last for a long time, typically 200,000 miles or more. The operative phrase here is “well-maintained.” If you want to keep your older Toyota going, you need to preemptively adjust, change, flush and repair certain maintenance items throughout its life. Here’s a list of items for your mechanic and you to maintain so your Toyota will last well into its golden years.

What your Toyota mechanic should do

Your Toyota mechanic will know the schedule for the important maintenance items on your car. If you have your car repaired at an independent repair shop, you should keep track of maintenance items yourself. Our suggestion is to have a Toyota mechanic perform the intensive maintenance items because they have they have the factory training. Here are six important maintenance items:

• Change oil and oil filter as per Toyota recommendations. Your Toyota mechanic will know what the intervals are and will use the right oils.
• Keep all fluids topped off properly. (You can check the levels of these fluids yourself.)
• Replace coolant and flush the coolant system at the appropriate mileage.
• Replace spark plugs at the appropriate mileage.
• Rotate tires as recommended by the tire manufacturer. Your Toyota mechanic may suggest a front-end alignment when this occurs.
• Change the timing belt as per the schedule (we discuss this further below).

Things you can do

There are several maintenance items that you can perform yourself on your Toyota. This list isn’t exhaustive but you can consider it a “Top Eight.”

• Check tire pressure of all tires (including the spare) once a month. This will keep your tires wearing evenly and will deliver you maximum gas mileage.
• Change wipers when they are worn. This will prevent possible window scratching.
• Vacuum the interior and keep it free of debris. This will keep animals out and make your car more presentable.
• Clean up spills right away. No one likes to clean up messes but it’s really important not let spills sit on upholstery and carpet for more than a few hours.  Consider a good steam cleaning occasionally too.
• If you have a leather interior, maintain it with a good leather conditioner twice a year.
• Keep your windshield reservoir filled with window washing solution, especially during the winter months.

Especially important maintenance item: Your timing belt

A very important maintenance item involves your engine’s timing belt. The timing belt in your car’s engine connects the crankshaft to the camshaft and it controls the timing of the valves. Timing belts are made of rubber and if they break, they can cause engine damage -a lot of engine damage. You should know when it needs to be done and here’s why: it is extremely common that car owners lose track of when their timing belt should be changed and the timing belt suddenly snaps unexpectedly.

Another note: when you have your timing belt changed, ask your mechanic if you should change the accessory belt, change the water pump, and flush the cooling system too. This will save you money in the long term since your mechanic will have to remove all the accessory belts anyway to get to the timing belt. The same logic goes for the water pump. While the timing belt is being changed, the labor is already included. 

Summary

If your Toyota is getting a little long in the tooth, with good maintenance and TLC you should be able to get a few more years out of her. Hopefully this article covered the high points of what to know to make this happen. (A discussion with your local Toyota dealer’s service manager might be a good idea too.) Sure, there will be some repair bills along the way but look at it as an investment in further miles.