Is your car back to school ready?

Summer is soon coming to an end. This could only mean it’s time to get back into the grind of reading 40 pages a night while drinking full amounts of coffee and energy drinks. But before you return to campus, did you check if your car is back to school ready? Sure, you might be ready to hit the books, but that means nothing if your car’s not ready to hit the road. After all, who wants to be late to their first day of class as a result of an embarrassing car issue? So, to keep this from happening, read along for some easy car maintenance tips.

Stay On Top of Routine Maintenance

Part of owning a car means taking it to a shop every now and then to get some routine maintenance. Overall, this step requires minimal work on your part. Instead, the mechanics take care of these steps. But the end results will keep your car running years longer. Here’s a basic checklist of some of the essentials:

• Oil changes
• Tire rotations
• Topped off fluids
• Brake disc changes

There are few others you can have checked as well. But for the most part, these are the basics of keeping your car healthy. So make sure to stay on top of these due dates… unless you want to pay for expensive car repairs alongside your tuition.

A Few Things You Can Check Yourself

Not every part of car maintenance needs a mechanic. Instead, there are quite a few things you can check to ensure your Ford stays in tip-top condition. So, with that said, here are some car care tips to check periodically before class:

• Tire pressure
• Tire care (i.e. adding air to low tires)
• Checking tire texture (if it’s balding, get it replaced)
• Air filters
• Check your lighting
• Listen to your engine for any issues
• Don’t neglect your engine lights—get to a mechanic if that check engine light comes on

This might seem like a long list. But really, these steps all take less than five minutes. So again, you can even check these if you arrive at your campus’s parking lot a few minutes early. Either way, these steps are key to maintaining a healthy car!

Don’t Forget About the Manual

If your car came with a manual, don’t forget to skim through it a few times. It’s filled with quite a few interesting tidbits like when to service your car. So, if you’re unsure about any maintenance tips, don’t be afraid to check your Ford manual.

Keep an Emergency Kit Available

You’ll never know when your car won’t be able to drive you for any given reason. Perhaps you forgot to shut off your headlights and the battery died. Or maybe the weather conditions are unsafe for driving any further while you’re miles away from the dorm. Either way, it’s a great idea to have a simple emergency kit on hand. Here are a few items that are good for it:

• Jumper cables
• Gloves
• Batteries
• Fluids
• Flashlight
• Safety kit
• Blanket
• Shovel
• Water
• Non-perishable food

Again, the above is mostly meant to get you started. If you can think of anything else to throw into your emergency kit, then, by all means, feel free to add to it!

Keep Your Car Organized

Jumping from class to class, it can feel tempting to use your car as a second backpack. And if you do opt for this, then here’s a simple back to school tip you can do yourself—keep it organized. Nothing is worse than mixing up your homework with your Ford Fiesta registration. So invest in some folders if you need. Also, you can purchase bins for your car if you need a place to store essentials like fluids and your emergency kit. Either way you go about this, try to keep your car as clean and organized as possible. This will make your life easier than that new professor who gives out free A’s for a good review!