5 Ways To Save Money And Lower Your Annual Car Related Costs

By : Steve Carr   

is one of the most expensive things that you can do and although the freedom that a car gives you is priceless, keeping it maintained so that you can go wherever you want, whenever you want unfortunately can bring with it a rather hefty price tag.

However, there are various ways that you can save yourself a small fortune each year on your car related costs and the following 5 points are some of the easiest to carry out.

1. Check your car before it goes in for its MOT - unless you're a car aficionado, it's highly unlikely that you carry out even the most rudimentary of checks before your car goes in for its annual MOT.

However, if you spend less than an hour ensuring that, for example, all of your car's lights are working properly and the fluid levels are topped up, you can save yourself the money of a retest - and the embarrassment of failing on something so minor.

2. Service it yourself - although you won't get a stamp in your log book, if you're planning on keeping your car for years, you could save yourself the cost of an annual service by servicing it yourself.

As complicated as you may think it is, servicing a car is actually relatively easy and as long as you have access to a Haynes manual - or even the internet and YouTube - everything you need to know from how to change the oil to replacing the spark plugs will be covered in an in-depth and easy to follow way.

3. Spend 30 minutes a week maintaining it - the best way to ensure that your car doesn't need any unnecessary repairs is to simply spend 30 minutes once a week maintaining it. Checking the fluid levels and tyre pressures, as well as washing it to ensure no substances damage the paintwork, the 30 minutes will be time well spent and after a few weeks, you'll begin to take it as a given that you have to maintain your car for that length of time and won't miss the 30 minutes from your week.

4. Shop around for everything - whether it's a bulb that needs replacing or all 4 tyres, never take the first price you come across, especially if you're going to a national retailer - although they're popular and have competitive deals, these deals are often only competitive to other major retailers and you could reduce the cost of your purchase by looking around and using the internet or small, local dealers.

5. Only buy what you can afford - it might sound simple and straightforward, but you should only ever buy a car that you can comfortably afford in all respects; not just in the initial price, but the on-going costs, too.

For instance, you might be able to walk into second hand Jaguar dealers and purchase a used XJ, but it's useless if you can't afford the service or repair costs.

Stick to what you can afford and you won't be met with any unnecessary or unexpected high bills.

Four Additional Costs You Need To Keep In Mind When Choosing Your Next Car

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By : Steve Carr   
Submitted 2010-10-31 15:52:17 One of the problems that people have when purchasing a car is that they don't budget properly.

They put money aside to pay for the car itself, but don't think about what additional costs they're going to have to pay afterwards, usually spending their entire budget on the car, without realising just how much money it's going to cost them throughout the year.

For instance, you could walk into Audi dealers today and stretch your budget so that you could drive away in a new A6.

Now that might seem fantastic and you might get a great feeling as you drive away from the Audi dealers, but if you've spent all of your money on the car, how are you going to afford all of the additional costs throughout the year?

This might not be a problem for some, but if you're concerned about the additional costs you're likely to have to pay out for, taking a look through the following four points and try and budget for them when you're next looking for a car.

1. Insurance - if you're buying your very first car, you're likely to know that your insurance premiums are going to be high and so you'll spend hours trying to find the cheapest quotes possible for a car before you even buy it.

When you've been driving a while, you will often skip this part, as the prices for a similar car are going to be roughly the same.

If you're spending your money on a different car to what you're normally used to, especially one that's high up the cost ladder, it's strongly recommended you check how much the insurance is going to be before you hand over your money for the car.

2. Fuel - generally speaking, the first few cars that you own will have a relatively small engine, so to keep the costs down on everything, including fuel.

If you're about to upgrade to a car with a larger engine, however, you really need to work out how much fuel you're going to go through each week, as where you might have spent 25 or 30 pounds a week previously, a bigger engine could easily see you spend 20 percent more on fuel.

3. Vehicle tax - something that is becoming the bane of many people's lives who purchase new cars, the way vehicle tax is calculated changed from 1 March 2010 and there are now two rates for cars less than 10 years old - one for brand new cars and one for cars that are between one and 10 years old.

Based on vehicle emissions, the less environmentally friendly your car is, the higher your vehicle tax is going to be and in an effort to deter people from buying cars that are harmful to the environment, the cost of vehicle tax for the first year for a car that falls into Band M is 950 pounds.

4. Maintenance - for most cars, standard maintenance is going to be roughly the same cost. However, if you're looking to get your Audi, for example, serviced annually at Audi dealers, you need to be aware that the cost could be several hundreds of pounds - average for a service for this quality of car, but considerably more than if you're used to getting a cheaper car serviced at a local garage.

Author Resource:- Jardine Motors Group UK operates a large portfolio of specialist franchises of the world's most prestigious marques, including Audi dealers.