"Red cars engine propped open"

Most people learned how to look after their cars from a friend or family member, all this information was simply passed down and at this point it may just be some mumbo jumbo theory. 

Following these myths can often result in a more expensive bill for customers in the long run or simply not following any maintenance or detailing schedule on your car can often result in terrible things for your car. 

Getting the right information and giving your car the treatment it deserves will help you not only save money in the long run but also become educated on the right practices when It comes to your car.

When you are maintaining and detailing your cat you want to be sure to give your car at the minimum what it requires but you don’t want to go overboard. So what are our top three things we would keep an eye out for.

Stay Within Vehicle Warranty Guidelines

Following the right steps when taking care of your car can help you stay within the excellent warranty your car came with when you purchased it. Its best to avoid voiding this warranty at any cost simply because of what it can save you from in the future. 

Be sure to choose the right dealership when they are servicing, repairing or detailing your car. A common misconception is that in order to stay within your warranty you must take your car to the dealership. While this is is a common practice you as the purchaser of the car have the choice to go anywhere you’d like,

We always recommend choosing a reputable shop for detailing or vehicle maintenance, this is done to ensure only professionals are working on your car and that the shop keeps records of all the service done on your car.

When an amateur services your car they may damage the car and lose or misfile the services records. This can put you in a sticky place so we recommend choosing only quality Calgary auto detailers.

Follow The Guidelines

The days when all cars were the same and required the same maintenance is of the past. Its time that you stopped getting your advice from your dad and uncle and instead went to the dealership or owner manual to learn more about your cars specific needs.

In the past generally each car required and oil change every 3000 kilometres or miles. In todays day and age many cars can go double if not more kilometres on one oil change, some cars such as electric cars don’t even need oil changes!

Doing your due diligence and visiting the dealership to learn more about your car and exactly what it needs can help you put your best foot forward when maintaining your car. Find out when is the best time to get a oil change, brake change or simply top up your fluids. Ask the dealer what can void your warranty in order to prevent this from happening as well.

Simply following this step and going to a dealership to learn more about maintaining and detailing your car will put you far ahead of most car owners.

You Do Not Need To Idle

In our cold Calgary winters we can almost guarantee someone told you that you do need to idle your car for 5 to 10 minutes before driving off. In the past this was generally done in order to give your car a chance to warm up but now many modern day cars simply do not need this. Sitting in your driveway for prolonged periods of time is usually just wasting fuel.

However at Drip Auto Pros we always recommend our clients to allow their car to come down from high idles before driving off, the reason behind this is because your car is idling higher to prevent it from stalling and when you drive off in high idle you can cause damage to your transmission.

While you don’t need to sit in our driveway for 10 minutes, give your car a minute or two to come down from high idle before driving away.

Scotty Kilmer has great youtube channel that covers and busts many myths in the car world, we tagged his video down here so you can make an informed decision by yourself if you want to idle your car or simply drive away.

In the video scotty stresses that idling depends on your location (due to weather conditions and other factors) the type and the year of your car. He mentions in modern cars it doesn’t really hurt your vehicle but can burn fuel.

If you liked Scottys video you can visit his channel, subscribe or give him a shout by clicking on this link

Final thought on this subject is to be careful when idling because many areas have now put bans on idling cars for too long, you can get ticketed for doing so. This is because tons of gas is hurting the planet every year from idling too long.

Auto Detailing

Many warrantees are put in place to help the customer enjoy their new car stress free for a few years, but we all know when the warranty is up it can be a scary time. Even when there is an adequate warranty not everything is generally covered.

This proves especially true when it comes to the aesthetic appeal of your car, self inflicted damage, rust and other common defects generally aren’t covered under car warranties and its understandable why. These issues arise by your fault or by you lacking care for your car.

Washing your car regularly, getting appropriate detailing and keeping your car away from dangerous situations can help you avoid this completely. It can be incredibly simple for car owners to keep their vehicles looking great.

You can prevent this detailing defects by choosing a local Calgary detailing company or by simply following all the guides we have on our website to detail for yourself, check out our in-depth car detailing guide here. As always if you do have any questions don’t hesitate to shoot us a email as we love hearing back from you guys.