Is your car holiday ready?

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Is your car holiday ready?

Will you soon be taking a road trip for a short holiday? Then it’s important to make sure that your car is in top-notch condition and ready for the road.
 
School holidays end tomorrow, so no, not taking a holiday road trip any time soon.
 
Are the roads in top-notch condition though?
Easy to sort out a car, when will the taxes that are constantly increased in the fuel price start to get allocated to fixing up our roads?

For instance, this weekend travelled on the following roads, the M4 in Durban South, heading towards the city centre, is like a slalom course, potholes all over the place, the R102 travelling north from KwaMashu to Ottawa is also an amazing test of vehicle handling and a proper work out for your shock absorbers.
 
If you do regular maintenance and servicing on your car, there is little to do to get it ready for a holiday trip.

Sarg3_ZN said:
Are the roads in top-notch condition though?
Easy to sort out a car, when will the taxes that are constantly increased in the fuel price start to get allocated to fixing up our roads?

For instance, this weekend travelled on the following roads, the M4 in Durban South, heading towards the city centre, is like a slalom course, potholes all over the place, the R102 travelling north from KwaMashu to Ottawa is also an amazing test of vehicle handling and a proper work out for your shock absorbers.
Click to expand...

I suggest that they rename the M4 and R102 so that service delivery will follow.
 
Yeah Discovery, there is no such thing as "holiday" ready...

A car is either in good nick and has its all its maintenance done and is road legal or its not.
 
ToxicBunny said:
Yeah Discovery, there is no such thing as "holiday" ready...

A car is either in good nick and has its all its maintenance done and is road legal or its not.
Click to expand...
Not entirely true - your tyres, for example, might be perfectly legal for a couple thousand km more but you might want to change them before a trip to save yourself the effort of having it done at your destination. Same goes for a scheduled service interval.
 
bwana said:
Not entirely true - your tyres, for example, might be perfectly legal for a couple thousand km more but you might want to change them before a trip to save yourself the effort of having it done at your destination. Same goes for a scheduled service interval.
Click to expand...

Of course, but the trip of a couple of thousand kms doesn't only equate to holidays. I know a good number of people who do those distances for work on weekly basis's.

The article should be more along the lines of "Is your car long-distance travel ready"
 
My random musings from our recent road trip.

Check that spare tyre- it's often an overlooked item.
Get yourself one of them tyre pressure measuring gauges if your car doesn't have a sensor.
If you're having a service done before a trip, give yourself say a week or so before the trip to basically make sure they didn't mess anything up. I've seen dealerships not tighten battery clamps, mess up oil levels, so drive around for a few days juuust to make sure all is OK.
And then on the trip, always fill up even when you think you don't need to (or if you're so inclined, have that jerry can handy). I didn't take my own advice recently and when we got to a petrol station, they didn't have petrol. Plenty diesel, no petrol. I was OK in that I could just about make it to the next one but was a nervy stint.
 
Sepeng said:
My random musings from our recent road trip.

Check that spare tyre- it's often an overlooked item.
Get yourself one of them tyre pressure measuring gauges if your car doesn't have a sensor.
If you're having a service done before a trip, give yourself say a week or so before the trip to basically make sure they didn't mess anything up. I've seen dealerships not tighten battery clamps, mess up oil levels, so drive around for a few days juuust to make sure all is OK.
And then on the trip, always fill up even when you think you don't need to (or if you're so inclined, have that jerry can handy). I didn't take my own advice recently and when we got to a petrol station, they didn't have petrol. Plenty diesel, no petrol. I was OK in that I could just about make it to the next one but was a nervy stint.
Click to expand...

Aggg have to play fuel-fill-up bingo at least ONCE on a long trip though... it makes it more fun :D
 
ToxicBunny said:
Of course, but the trip of a couple of thousand kms doesn't only equate to holidays. I know a good number of people who do those distances for work on weekly basis's.

The article should be more along the lines of "Is your car long-distance travel ready"
Click to expand...
Fair enough - though a long distance family trip is likely to involve a change in tyre pressures as well - at least it does when my missus packs.
 
I am driving down to KZN at the end of the month for a week so I went this past Saturday to get my wheels balanced and aligned. My wheels were rotated 1700km ago so there was no need for rotation. Balanced and aligned wheels will improve fuel economy, not by a massive amount but every little bit helps.
 
Sepeng said:
Mate not when you've got the wife in the passenger seat saying "I told you so"...
Click to expand...

Then I tell her to walk the rest of the way and leave me to find my fun in the multi thousand km road trip :P
 
bwana said:
So it seems - mine go back tomorrow so no holiday trips are on my cards.
Click to expand...
Yeah mine also, though much better than last year, he was pretty much off two terms.
 
If I can't get into my car right now and with confidence do a 2000 km trip then it's time for a new car.
 
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