There are a few thing you can do when driving that will cut your maintenance costs by a huge amount, and not all of them are obvious.

Engine.

Drive off as soon as the motor starts.

Lets begin with starting the car. Older cars needed to warm up before being driven. This was because fuel mixture was poor when they used carburetors, and it would either have too much petrol or too much air, in other words, until the car engine was warm, the car would struggle to run properly and cause damage to the motor when driven cold.

All late-model cars, even 15-year-old ones, no longer run with a crude mixture when cold. Driving off as soon as you start the motor will save fuel and engine wear, as newer motors have better lubrication systems. The motor will warm up quicker under load when being driven resulting in less engine wear.

One proviso: Don’t drive a cold motor hard. It will wear out much quicker. A light driving style will warm the motor without stressing engineering components in the motor.

Suspension.

Go very slowly over speed humps.

Your cars suspension has to compress when you go over an uneven surface. The shock absorbers on all four wheels have to dampen that compression to allow for a comfortable ride as well as keep the wheel in contact with the road. This force os transmitted to your car’s chassis.

A lot of parts get stressed when we drive over speed humps, suspension gets taken to the limit if we go over them too quickly. I see 4 wheel drives and others rush across them quite comfortably even at speed. Some cars do the same, giving a perfectly good ride inside the car.

The problem is that the constant pressures on the suspension stresses everything in your car. The body gets twisted, compressed and stretched resulting in fractures in metal, rattles, electrical problems often develop from the shock, springs get worn out, shock absorbers, exhaust mounting points, ball joints, metal that receives these stresses are degraded by traveling too fast over speed humps and other obstructions.

Electrical.

Keep your battery terminals clean.

The battery is the life of your electrical system, supplying power for starting the motor and running all the lights and gadgets in your car, yet it is often ignored.

Terminals must be tight and clean. You can buy a small brass brush that cleans the terminal and the inside of the battery lead for about $4. A 12 volt battery should be producing more than 13.5 volts when working correctly, and voltage drop affects engine performance as well as any heavy storage loss will mean that the starter motor for your engine will not be strong enough to start easily if at all.

Body.

Keep it clean inside and out.

This is pretty obvious, but what I am talking about is the water galleries. In the bottom of your doors, fenders, trunk and under the bonnet near the windscreen are holes and passageways for water to exit the body. If these holes get blocked through not being cleaned regularly the water will sit there and rust your car body.

Thanks for reading, and happy motoring!

Articles related to car maintenance, design faults, recalls and driver reviews from a motor engineer with 35 years experience. I have written 128 articles over the last 2 years. http://hubpages.com/profile/earnestshub