To be on the road, a vehicle must be in a roadworthy condition.
To be on the road, a vehicle must be in a roadworthy condition.
Unless of course they offer volumes of tea and coffee
By carrying out basic daily checks to your vehicle, you'll be on a good path to keeping on the right side of the law, your insurance company, and avoiding unnecessary trips to your local mechanic. Let alone have the knowledge that your vehicle is in tip top shape so that you'll know things will work when you need them.
Just a basic guide for daily checks we recommend to follow the acronym POWDERY!
P - PETROL. Do you have enough petrol for your journey?
O - OIL. Are the oil levels within the minimum and maximum marker levels? (Brake fluid, Engine oil, Power steering oil is you have a hydraulic steering rack).
W - WATER. Is there sufficient water in the expansion tank for your engine coolant? Is you screen wash topped up?
D - DAMAGE. Is there any damage to your vehicle? Overnight, there may have been some vandalism, another vehicle may have driven past and smashed off a door mirror, someone may have thought it a laugh to let down your tyres, some areas have even seen spates of tyre slashing happening. Always have a check to see if there are any obvious leaks of fluids from your car, just a quick visual check would spot something out of the ordinary.
E - ELECTRICS. Are all the electrics working? When we say electrics we're not expecting you to check every last sensor etc. What we mean is are all the bulbs working for your lights? Side lights front and rear, Dipped beam, Main beam, Fog lights, signal indicators, Brake lights, Number plate lights, does your horn work, and do the motors for the windscreen wipers work ok? Obviously you could go further, but the items listed here are ALL items that would deem you vehicle unroadworthy should they not be working. This in turn could void your insurance and land you in trouble with the police if they spotted defective items on your vehicle, leading to points and a fixed penalty fine.
R - RUBBER. Are your tyres in a good condition and do they meet the minimum legal requirement of 1.6mm around the full circumference of the tyre and across the centre 3/4 of the tyre? What about your windscreen wipers? are they damaged, have you changed them in the last year? do they clear the windscreen without leaving smears? do they have any splits in them? Your windscreen wipers are the only thing allowing you to clearly see where you are going when it's raining, a defective set could leave you in one heck of a mess when you really need them.
Y - YOURSELF. What condition are you in? Are you physically and mentally fit to be driving? Possibly the most important as you are the person operating the vehicle. If you are not in a fit state to be driving the vehicle, should you be?
Regular vehicle checks will not only help to reduce the inconvenience of breaking down, but possibly the extra cost of not finding something that is wearing out in its early stages and repairing/replacing it before it fails completely and potentially damaging other things as well, or causing an accident.
Clean windows inside and out, allow you to see where you are going and avoid glare at night!
Along with checking your lights, while walking around your car check your number plate is clean as well it is an offence to not be able to see your number plate clearly.
Check your mirrors are clean and positioned correctly to ensure you can clearly reduce your blind spot areas.
