Performing a Proper Car Maintenance after Road Trip

• Car Advice,
• Dec 06, 2019

The air whooshes across your face as you open the side window of your vehicle while driving through a long road with little to no population of humans around you. Just a few cars are in sight which makes you realize how alone you are in this big, open universe. All of a sudden, you snap back into reality and focus on your driving with which you are reminded why you are driving through such a lonely place. You are on a road trip that involves you going from the roads of this kind. A smirk forms across your face as this is not the weirdest (or pleasant, if you’re into that kind of things) you have faced today.

There have been many more perilous paths that you have gone through with ease. This is nothing as compared to them. Relieved, you focus on your driving; unaware of the consequences of all the roads you have gone through once you reach your home… unless you perform the necessary car maintenance after the road trip.

Yes, you read it correctly. It is going to be a lot harmful to you and your car if you do not perform proper maintenance after the road trips. This is an essential part of car maintenance and should never be avoided.

Shouldn’t I perform maintenance before the road trip?

Well, yes! You should always make sure that your vehicle is up to date in all kinds of ways before you start your journey. This includes checking your fluids, the brakes, the engine, etc. and ensuring that they all work properly. In case any of them is not functioning or is not as it should be, you must always fix it or restore it back to its working position. Preparing a car for a road trip is necessary. Take our advice on it; never go out without first inspecting your vehicle. Car maintenance after the road trip is as important as it is doing it before the road trip. We will explain the reasons as we progress in the article.

Just a reminder that a lot of points from this article will resemble one of our other articles on maintenance which included a pink slip checklist. You can read this article here: Pink Slip Checklist: How to pass pink slip inspection?

What is important maintenance for your car?

Basic engine maintenance is one of the important maintenances of your vehicle. However, that’s not the only recommended car maintenance step. There are plenty of other actions that need to be taken. For starters, proper car maintenance should include inspection and correction (if anything is out of order) of the following components of a vehicle:

 1. Car Engine

 2. Fluids & Oils

 3. Brakes and Braking System

 4. Tyres

 5. Interior and Exterior (Body)

 6. Lights

 7. Exhaust System

This should be enough information for someone who is an expert with the cars and knows his way around. However, if you do not know much about vehicles, do not worry. We are here to help, after all. Refer to the next section for the detail on how to properly perform an inspection of the aforementioned components of a vehicle.

Performing proper car maintenance after a road trip:

Let’s just first assume a bit of factor before we dig into the whole process. The “road trip” we’re considering should at least be a few days longer. You can not call a day trip to your office in another city and back a simple road trip. Other than that, it should be fun. Road trips are always fun. Office trips aren’t. Also, during the trips, you should have at least gone through something that’s sure to mess your car up. Otherwise, can you even call it a trip?

Once we know the prerequisites of our definition of a “road trip”, let’s progress towards the maintenance steps.

 1. Check your engine’s functionality:

The car engine is the heart and soul of it. Just like you, a vehicle cannot perform very well without its heart. Checking your engine’s functionality is a mandatory step for car maintenance after the road trips. In order to do this, start up your car, rev it up a little bit and see if the engine makes any weird noises. Taking the vehicle out for a test drive is probably a good idea as it would help you inspect the engine as well as other things too.

 2. Ensure the perfect level of fluids:

Without the food for yourself, you wouldn’t function properly, now would you? The same is the case with the vehicles, and fluids are basically what they consume to work well. You should make sure that the fluids of your vehicle (brake oil, engine oil, mobile oil, etc.) are all in perfect amount and if they are not, get them refilled.

 3. Make sure the brakes work properly:

Brakes tend to give up after a long, tiring journey. While doing a test run, make sure that the brakes have not lost their integrity and are fully functional. These are one of the most important components of a vehicle and should never be ignored.

 4. Are the tyres okay?

Since we previously assumed that our journey is going to be a bit rough, it is quite certain that tyres would be somewhat bad after it. A long, perilous journey leaves its impact on tyres and they are bound to be in a bad condition. If that happens, replace them. Immediately.

 5. Take a quick look at your car’s body, both from inside and outside:

This is something you would normally do too. Take a quick look at your car’s body from in and out and make sure that it is in perfect order. Get it to wash (or wash it yourself) to remove all the dirt and dust that might have been left over from your trip. 

 6. The lights are fine, right?

The lights should be fine… unless you hit something somewhere during your trip? This should be pretty obvious.

 7. Is your vehicle’s exhaust system working fine?

Vehicles can be in serious trouble in the exhaust systems are not working properly. If you think that your vehicle is not expelling the gases, you should take it to a mechanic.

 8. Check the car battery!

You know how to do this! And this is one of the most leading steps in performing proper car maintenance after road trips. Car batteries tend to run out. It is wise to check them from time to time to make sure you do not run into trouble.

 9. An optional: Emergency Breakdown Repair:

This is a completely hypothetical scenario but there might be a case where you might have had a breakdown of your vehicle and you got it repaired by some local mechanic nearby. It is most of the time that those mechanics would have charged you less to fix your vehicle just so you could get out of trouble. It is better to get your vehicle’s broken component inspected by your personal mechanic or a professional one when you reach back home.

That was all for car maintenance after a road trip! If you would like to add something, be sure to contact us. If you want to purchase a vehicle, make sure that you perform revs check, history check and all other sorts of the check just to be sure. QuickREVs does it for you at an extremely low price and with surprisingly great results!