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There are many ways to keep your car running a long time, but it’s important to follow some of the most basic tips. From personal experience, the longest I kept a car was for thirteen years. The car was a 1988 Chevy Corsica, which I bought brand new in the summer of 1987. I realize that buying a car new isn’t the most economical thing to do, as the depreciation is a killer, but just once I wanted to experience what owning a new car was like. I also ordered exactly all the options that I wanted right from the factory, and it was a nice experience when that car was delivered to the dealership and I drove it home! I kept that car running a long time, and achieved over a quarter of a million miles from it before I rebuilt the engine and sold it for a thousand dollars. It cost me twelve thousand brand new, so that’s not a bad investment, and I’m not even talking about all the money I saved over the course of thirteen years by owning the original car that long. I even got a letter from Chevy headquarters welcoming me to the “over two-hundred thousand mile club”! Nowadays, getting over a hundred thousand miles is no big deal, and even getting close to two hundred thousand isn’t that uncommon, but twenty years ago it was, and I was very proud of my achievement. So how did I do it? What did I do to keep the car going all that time? Read on…. It turns out that all I really did was follow the owner’s manual, almost to the letter! That’s right, I faithfully changed the oil every five thousand miles, as I did a lot of highway miles and also I didn’t think it was necessary to change it every three thousand miles. Of course, if I did some towing, or lived in a dusty environment, I would have changed the oil perhaps much less than the five thousand miles. Also, it was important to do all the fluid changes as well, such as the anti-freeze (living in the Boston area wreaks havoc on a car, with the salty air and the vicious winters) and the transmission fluid. Don’t beat your car! Not if you want to keep it running a long time, that is. That doesn’t mean I drove the car like Ma and Pa Kettle, I didn’t. In fact, I would take the car up to very high speeds every so often, and I’m lucky I didn’t get that many speeding tickets. But doing doughnuts in the parking lot or not following the owner manual is a huge no-no! The car was driven across the country a couple of times as well. This car never disappointed me, and I reminisce about it every once in a while. It was relatively cheap to own, and the older it got the cheaper it was to own, due to less insurance costs and so forth. The fact is, that if one takes care of their car, follows the owners’ manual as best they can, gives a little tender loving car to it, a lot of miles can be driven, and quite a bit of money can be saved! Category:Home › Other • Pomegranates: A newly discovered superfood • Where did the joke why did the chicken cross the road come from and why is it funny? • Can mothers diagnosed with bipolar disorder make good parents? • Spiritual evolution of human consciousness • Tips for getting a college basketball scholarship • Living with Pseudotumor cerebri (PTC) • Caring for the caregiver • Technologys impact on society