The Gospel of Preventative Maintenance: How to Keep Your Car Running Longer Than Most Marriages

In the beginning, there was the Engine. And the Engine was good… until it wasn’t. Thus began the Great Tradition of Preventative Maintenance — a sacred ritual passed down from wise mechanics, grizzled service advisors, and that one uncle who swears he “hears things.”

Welcome, traveler, to the holiest of automotive scriptures. Within these verses lie the secrets to keeping your vehicle running strong enough to shame even the most committed long-term relationships.

📜 Chapter 1: Thou Shalt Not Ignore the Oil Change

Neglecting an oil change is the automotive equivalent of never drinking water and wondering why your kidneys hate you.

Oil is the lifeblood of your engine. High-quality synthetics like Valvoline keep engines cleaner, cooler, quieter, and significantly less likely to explode into a cloud of regret and metal shavings.

Change your oil. Don’t be that person who comes in at 14,000 miles saying, “It still looks kinda yellow.” That is not yellow. That is the color of your engine’s soul leaving its body.

📜 Chapter 2: Rotate Thy Tires, Lest They Wear Uneven Like a Middle-Aged Hairline

Your tires take more abuse than a service advisor dealing with a customer who says, “It just started doing it… right after the warranty expired.”

Stick with strong brands like Michelin, Bridgestone, or BFGoodrich if you want them to last more than five minutes on New Hampshire’s roads-from-hell.

Rotate them every 5k–7k miles. Your tires will last longer, ride smoother, and stop screaming at you on the highway like they’re reenacting a ghost scene from a horror movie.

📜 Chapter 3: Blessed Are Those Who Replace Their Fluids

Transmission fluid, coolant, brake fluid — these are not optional beverages your car sips “if it’s thirsty.” These are structural requirements preventing catastrophic explosions of mechanical sadness.

For performance and longevity, we recommend trusted brands like Valvoline for engine oil, coolant, and other fluids. OEM options such as Toyota Genuine Fluids also provide excellent protection.

Brake fluid, especially, turns into maple syrup over time. And while maple syrup is great on pancakes, it is terrible for stopping your 4,000-pound chariot from T-boning a Subaru.

📜 Chapter 4: He Who Forgets to Change His Air Filter Shall Breathe the Dust of a Thousand Sands

Your engine needs air. Fresh air. Not the debris, pollen, rodent fluff, and tree shrapnel you’ve been forcing it to inhale for the past 30,000 miles.

Stick with quality filters from K&N or Wix if you want your engine breathing better than you do during allergy season.

Changing your air filter is cheap. Not changing it is… well… do you enjoy paying for fuel your engine can’t efficiently burn?

📜 Chapter 5: The Serpentine Belt — Also Known as “The Rope of Doom”

This belt runs everything. If it snaps, your power steering is gone, your alternator dies, your water pump stops spinning, and suddenly you’re reenacting the Oregon Trail but with smoke instead of dysentery.

Good belt brands like Gates or ACDelco can save you from getting stranded in a Walmart parking lot at 10pm.

📜 Chapter 6: Listen to the Noises — They Are Omens

Clunks, squeals, rattles, tick-ticks, grind-grinds… these are not “normal.” Your car is speaking in tongues, trying to warn you before something expensive detonates.

Our shop uses high-end diagnostic tools from Snap-On, Bosch Automotive, and Autel to interpret these mechanical cries for help.

If your vehicle sounds like a haunted dishwasher, bring it in.

📜 Chapter 7: Salt Is the Silent Murderer

In New England, road salt doesn’t rust your vehicle… it devours it like an angry piranha swarm.

Wash the undercarriage. Oil undercoat. Do whatever it takes.

Rust never sleeps. Rust never stops. Rust is the IRS of the automotive world.

📜 Final Chapter: Go Forth and Maintain

Preventative maintenance is not a burden — it is a blessing. It’s the reason some cars hit 300,000 miles while others meet their fate at 90k when the owner says those cursed words:

“I didn’t think it needed anything.”

Your car doesn’t want to be neglected. It wants to live. It wants to thrive. It wants to take you to work, to camp, to Dunkin’, and back again without suffering mechanical heartbreak.

Honor these sacred laws, and your car shall reward you with years of faithful service.

And if you need a place to perform these rituals with skill, honesty, and a bit of humor…

Ron’s Toy Shop awaits you, blessed traveler.