You know the car and its history, having a quality older car and not having to trade down to a budget offering just for the sake of having new has its benefits too.

And if you take the time to practice and realise the importance of preventative maintenance, the cost of this exercise can be realistically contained within anybody’s budget!

Besides the obvious dangers of neglecting items like cambelts, brakes etc.

The most important factor in these tight financial times is to budget and plan for servicing and maintenance to your vehicle because whether you like it or not, your vehicle needs to be maintained in order to avoid costly repair bills when something fails due to neglect.

Now many of you will have cars that may have come with some or other service plan, but as already stated, we have to stay with our cars longer than before and this means that service plans will be running out before the car is sold, and these new costs will be yours to bear.

And of course there are many, many South Africans that are driving good quality used or older model cars that never came with service plans to start with and they too need to heed this advice.

Some basic tips on this subject are to prioritise what work on your vehicle you think is critical and what work you would consider less serious and communicate this properly with your SAC service provider who in turn can advise on a number of items.

For example, how you can save money on labour by fitting brake pads while the vehicle might be booked in for a minor service or even getting it tuned perfectly on the dyna in conjunction with a major service.

And of course doing things this way minimises the wasted time of dropping off and collecting your vehicle each time at a SAC outlet and perhaps even there could be a decent discount in the bargaining for a larger bill.

Breaking this further down into simple number terms, if you travel 30000 km`s per year your car would need to have about three services at approximately R800 per time.

This would equate to R2400 per year divided by 12 means you need to provide only about R200 per month for your vehicle maintenance.

Now this doesn’t sound too bad and sure beats having to fork it all out in one lump sum, or even worse, have to find the money for a costly breakage that could have been avoided in the first place.

And also represents good value for money if you consider that you pay a steep monthly bill, much more than R200 pm, for short term insurance and in most cases don't claim for five years and more.

And then if you are going to be responsible and maintain your car properly and keep it longer, it would be very wise and make financial sense to ensure that you are getting the best fuel consumption out of the vehicle at the same time.

Another harsh reality of motoring today is that we are now paying over R10 per litre of fuel and this number is not likely to drop anytime soon.

Going back to the numbers example, a 6 km / litre vehicle doing an average of 40 000 kilometres per year will cost over R65 000 to fuel.

Now if you could save 2 km / litre, the same vehicle will cost about R50 000 to fuel, that is a saving of at least R15 000 per year, and over just three years, this will put R45 000 back into your pocket.

So feel free to contact a consultant at a SAC branch near you, as we have the facilities and means to do what it takes to stretch a tank of fuel, from correct tuning to even properly applied performance enhancements.

Not only will you enjoy and want to spend more time in your vehicle as a result, you could end up saving yourself some much needed money in the process.