Keeping Your Car Safe + Healthy

Keeping Your Car Safe + Healthy

• March 14, 2017

Since I inherited my car from my sister in law 6 years ago, I love the freedom it gives me zipping around town and now being able to take my baby to classes, check ups and parties. It's a cute little Nissan Micra from 2002, so you can imagine how well it's done to survive so many years!

Throughout the years, we have always taken it for a full service right after its MOT, every year without fail and even then I experienced a much dreaded breakdown. I'm grateful it has only happened once, but that one time was scary enough.

When my car broke down

I was just doing a short 10 minute drive late at night to pick my sister up from the train station when the battery suddenly cut off after I hit the brakes to slow down. I had no idea what was happening, but instinctively reignited the engine and it came back to life again. After stepping on the brakes again to turn into a road, it cut off again and this time was even more scary as I was in mid-turn with oncoming traffic! I quickly reignited it again and luckily it started driving like usual...

It felt like forever before I arrived at the station, having to start the car up after every time I braked. Once I parked up, I called my breakdown recovery since I was too scared to drive home with the car like that. Assistance came after about an hour wait, and I was told to drive home whilst they followed behind since there was nothing they could that late at night.

I eventually made it back home and was advised to take the car to a garage the next day but there was no way I was willing to drive in busy day time traffic with the engine cutting off. I managed to find a mobile mechanic (I didn't even know that existed!) who came out to me. He replaced the battery and reconnected some wires in the car and ever since, my little car has been as good as gold.

Staying safe

That just goes to show you can never be too safe and especially so now that I have a baby. It's always a good idea to take your car in for a full service every year, and another important thing to check regularly are the car tyres.

It was sheer bad luck that I ended with 2 flat tyres at the same time earlier this year, but having taken it to a few garages for quotes, I found out that all 4 of my tyres were actually quite worn down with split marks on them. I thought because they had passed the MOT, they were fine but MOT only tests for the treads. The treads on my tyres were sufficient but the spilt marks can be dangerous to drive on especially at high speeds.

And of course, having your brakes checked are super important! This will usually be covered in the MOT but if there's signs of any minor faults, take the car to a garage and get it checked ASAP.


*This is a collaborative post, all opinions are my own and unbiased.