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It is a good and noble thing to learn how to run essential and basic car maintenance checks and balances all by yourself. First and foremost, and probably most importantly for a majority of people, it will save you money. If you can fix a few things without needing to run to the mechanics, then you will be able to pick up more knowledge as you go along, and will only need to drop the car in for an overall check up every once in a while. If you have to go to the garage frequently, the mechanics probably welcome you with open arms. You may well have paid for their holiday this year. However, know where the line is between something you can fix and something you cannot. Running essential maintenance on your car is great. Running essential maintenance badly is going to cost you money. 

It is important to check tire pressure, and ideally you should do it once a month at least – but certainly no less often than twice a year. When you check your tire pressure, you may well find the tires are under-inflated, and this will also make itself known in the fact that you can get roughly the same handling from your car as you would get from a broken supermarket trolley. However, if under-inflation is bad it does not follow that over-inflation is good. Over-inflate your tires and you will find that they wear out a heck of a lot more quickly, and they will give you handling that is just as bad. Do it to the prescribed level, and no further. And then keep more regular checks.

Replacing wiper blades is not a big job, but it is a fairly niggly one. There is a lot of fiddling around required in order to do it correctly, and some people decide to get as much as they humanly can from their wiper blades before replacing them. The problem with this is that worn wiper blades are probably as bad for your windshield as none at all. They scrape on the windshield and they are more of a debris redistribution mechanism than a cleaner. Replace them once a year, in the fall. Extreme weather conditions play havoc with rubber – it expands in the summer and contracts in the winter. Give your blades a chance to get into their stride, then, by replacing them when the weather is temperate. 

Simplified, the principle of Occam’s Razor is that the simplest explanation is the preferable one. Funnily enough, this applies to vehicle maintenance. This means that if you hear unfamiliar noises when you perform a certain driving task, then that part is probably lacking in some way. More often than not, it will be a fluid issue. If your brakes are squeaking, check your brake fluid. If your power steering is making an odd noise, check the fluid for that, and so forth. Finally, preventative maintenance is better than curative, so if you are concerned about the performance of your car in cold or hot weather, or any form of climatic condition, put it in the garage. It is after all a lot less likely to get stolen in there, too.