Our vehicles are made to sustain a certain amount of abuse, however excessive hard driving can really bring on the wear in a hurry. Going too fast around corners, a few screeched tires, and a little cramming on the brakes is the normal way a teenager drives, but it shouldn’t be the normal driving routine for your car. Bad driving habits will show up in how long your vehicle lasts.

Most of us are aware of certain maintenance schedules for oil changes and tire rotation, but it’s probably not on the top of our list to have the suspension checked regularly. In every vehicle owners manual is the maintenance schedule all laid out according to severe schedule and non severe. Under the severe schedule are vehicles making frequent short trips under 10 miles, vehicles driven heavily loaded or used to tow trailers, vehicles driven in dusty environments, or city traffic stop-and-go situations. Not listed among these are the situations perhaps most wearing to the suspension of the vehicle. Living in or traveling in the Snowbelt, winter can be hard enough on the undercarriage of the vehicle, then spring rolls around and huge potholes open up on the roadways. The stress of these two situations is hard enough but factoring in the salt used on the roadways makes these situations perhaps the most severe on vehicle suspensions.

It is certainly important to maintain our vehicles to stave off the need to replace them before we can realistically afford to. In order to make our vehicles last longer we need to first be aware of the proper maintenance schedules and follow them as they are instructed. It is often during one of these maintenance checks that a different minor problem can be addressed saving us the extreme expense that happens when things go bad to the point of breaking. A good example of this is a brake check, brakes should be inspected at every oil change, not just when the brakes begin to squeal or have a grinding noise when they are applied. Tires should be rotated every six months or every six thousand miles, whichever comes first.

Tires, interestingly enough, are one of the first indicators that something else isn’t right with the suspension simply because of how they are wearing. Worn tires can result from worn steering and suspension parts. Because wheels are knocked out of alignment when steering and suspension parts wear out, the alignment should be checked once a year. This will give two benefits, the first is the correction of alignment issues, which will keep the tires from wearing prematurely, and the second is the tech will conduct a thorough inspection of the steering and suspension before aligning the vehicle because worn parts will make it impossible to properly align the vehicle to factory specifications. Your tires are one of the first things to vibrate or shake showing you it’s time to investigate. Tires are easy to maintain, just keep them aired up, rotated and balanced on schedule and your auto repair center can tell you if they need to look deeper. We all have to replace tires every so often, but the suspension parts are designed to last for a hundred thousand miles. That’s not to say they won’t go bad early, but that is why it’s a good idea to pay attention to your ride. If it vibrates, get busy checking.

It’s a good idea to drive smart, no speeding over speed bumps in the parking lots. This unnecessary act causes extra wear and tear on those shocks and struts that are working so hard to keep your ride comfortable. If you are towing with your vehicle or simply hauling blocks or pavers home from Home depot, know the weight limits recommended for your vehicle so you don’t over stress your suspension. Maintaining your vehicle is a delicate balance, if you do too little it will cost you far more than you ever imagined and if you are constantly buying unnecessary upgrades you are wasting money. Keep it in the middle, maintain and enjoy the ride.

Sometimes people are not ready to spend the money to replace worn suspension parts like shocks, struts and bushings, but these are components that can compromise the ability of the car to maintain traction on the road, which can affect braking, steering, and other measures to avoid an accident. Keeping your vehicle’s suspension in a good state of repair is a necessity in the name of safety and it can help you avoid monstrous repair bills. Your favorite auto repair center can help you with this entire process and take the guess work out of it. Safety in the car should be our top priority and it isn’t all about defensive driving, part of it is defensive maintenance.