Maintaining your vehicle

Maintaining your vehicle is essential to help ensure that it is roadworthy, safe to drive or ride, fuel efficient, less polluting and not a danger to passengers, pedestrians and other road users. Vehicle maintenance ranges from cleaning your vehicle and conducting weekly checks through to full servicing and repair.

New practical driving or riding test

The [...]

Hannah Pool has barely learned to drive a car, let alone carry out repairs. So how would she cope with a tutorial in basic maintenance … in the rain?

There are few things I know less about than cars. At 35, I have only just started taking driving lessons. And so it’s fairly safe to assume that [...]

Around a third of cars fail their MOT in Britain each year, follow this checklist and you may avoid some of the simple fails

Around one third of the 30m cars tested each year fail their MOT inspection. The majority of these are due to a small number of defects. Some problems you can fix before the [...]

20 minutes
Professional cost From £10 plus towing fee
DIY cost Free

You may not be able to match the frenzied blur of a Formula One pitstop, but changing a wheel and tyre yourself is much easier than you think.

Before you start

Make sure you are on firm, level ground, your engine is off and the handbrake is on. If [...]

60 minutes
Professional cost £90: For two oil and filter changes
DIY cost £32.96 plus oil: Oil price varies depending on the car (from about £20). Cost includes £14.99 axel stands, £9.99 socket set, oil filter wrench £4.49 and oil filter £3.49

Jacking up the car

First, warm the engine for a few minutes: this will thin the oil, making [...]