Cayenne here and Happy New Year to all! I am going to start my New Year teaching you all about how to budget for maintenance on your car. So with no further adieu......let's get barkin'!
Sometimes busy Los Altos, Cupertino and Sunnyvale residents dream about going back to the “simpler” days of our grandparents. But if you could travel back in time and take a road trip around CA in a Model T, you might change your mind. The improved designs and quality of today's automobiles have significantly reduced the amount of time Los Altos residents spend at the side of the road during breakdowns. With proper maintenance, today's vehicles can stay on the road longer than ever before.
Some of those improvements, however, have led to higher repair costs. For example, older cars often broke down from vapor lock. Gas vaporized while traveling from the gas tank to the fuel pump. No gas, no power. The car quits going. The solution was simple — you just sat by the road until the car would start up again. Today's South Bay drivers would hardly tolerate that kind of inconvenience; and it's likely that yesterday's South Bay drivers didn't care much for it, either. So on today's vehicles, the fuel pump is actually located inside the gas tank. Problem solved. No more vapor lock. The downside is that now it costs a lot more to repair or replace a fuel pump at South Bay area auto service centers (Los Altos, Cupertino, Sunnyvale and Mt. View).
Los Altos drivers should certainly should be grateful for the improvements in auto design that keep us off the side of the road, but it comes at a price. Car care in CA is simply more than it used to be. So if you think about it, Silicon Valley drivers can avoid many vehicle repairs by preventive maintenance. If we plan for maintenance, we can avoid a lot of costly repairs.
Just a bit of auto advice from Cayenne & Allied Auto Works: If you like new cars and can afford them, then buy them. But if you are buying a new car every few years because you're afraid of the higher repair costs for older vehicles, then you ought to take a second look at the numbers. You can save a lot of money on car payments and CA auto insurance with an older vehicle, and preventive auto maintenance can help you avoid most car repair bills. And if you budget for preventive maintenance you have done at Allied Auto Works, it can become as routine as a car payment — only a whole lot less!
Wow this sounds like a no brainer from me, Cayenne and think about all those dog bones you could buy on the money you save..............hmmmmmm, Til next week with DUKE
Allied Auto Works
2073 Grant Road
Los Altos, CA 94024
650.968.7227
http://www.alliedautoworks.com