We often fill up when we’re rushing off somewhere. But garage forecourts used to be at their busiest on a Saturday or Sunday morning, when motorists would dedicate half an hour to a special trip to fill up, check their tyre pressure, top up their battery and coolant and check their oil.
Modern batteries are sealed and don’t need topping up, but the other jobs are still the best place to begin.
You should try to do these every time you fill up or at least every other time.
| Check your oil |
Park your car on a flat area, and switch off the engine. If the garage provides disposable gloves, put some on. Let the car sit for a few minutes so that as much oil as possible drains back to the lowest point. Open your bonnet, find the oil dipstick (check your owner’s handbook if necessary), withdraw it, and wipe it clean on a rag or paper towel. Find the calibrated scale on the stick (a MIN and MAX mark of some kind). Lower the dipstick back into the hole from which you’ve withdrawn it, all the way down. The bottom of the dipstick is now sitting in the oil in the engine. Then bring it quickly and cleanly back out of the hole and see where the liquid level is on the MIN-MAX scale. If it is below the MIN level, or getting down towards the MIN level, you should open the oil filler cap, buy a litre of oil of the kind specified in your owner’s handbook, and pour half of it into the engine. Then test the level again with the dipstick. If it’s still too low, pour in the other half. Once your dipstick test gives you a level around half way between MIN and MAX, push the dipstick firmly and fully back into its hole, and replace the oil filler cap tightly.
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| Check your coolant |
Coolant is usually a mixture of water, antifreeze and rust inhibitor, and prevents your car from overheating. In most circumstances, on a modern car, it will not need topping up between services, but it’s good to check. If it does need topping up, you will need to add only cold water, and most petrol stations provide a water hose near to their air line for this purpose. The plastic bottle that contains the coolant can develop a leak, as can the hosepipes that circulate the coolant, and if you find that your coolant level is dropping regularly, you should ask your garage to find the problem and fix it. Checking the coolant level is easy but to avoid the risk of burning yourself please wait for your car engine to cool down first. The radiator on your car sits at the front of the engine bay, inside the front grille. You’ll see a hose coming from the cap on the radiator. Follow the hose and it will lead you to a clear plastic tank. This is the coolant reservoir. It will have a MIN and MAX scale on the outside, and you should be able to see the level of the water hovering somewhere between. If the level is below the Min line, open the cap on the coolant reservoir, add some water to bring the level back between the 2 lines, and close it up tightly again. As winter approaches, you need to be sure that your coolant system has sufficient antifreeze in it. If in doubt about this, pop into a garage and ask them to check the concentration of your coolant.
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| Check your tyres |
Have a look in your owner’s handbook and see what the correct tyre pressures are for your car, carrying the kind of load you most normally carry. There will be two values: one for the front and one for the back, and they may or may not be equal. Tyre pressures will usually be shown in the traditional ‘psi’ unit (pound/square inch), as well as the EU recognised ‘bar’. You should note both values, because the gauge on the airline at the petrol station you use may show one but not the other. Some garages still provide free airlines, while others now pay for their upkeep with coin operated units. If you find one of these, you simply insert the necessary coins or tokens, and press a start button, after which you will hear the sound of a compressor running, and the air line will give you a few minutes’ use. Be warned, you will need to work quickly, as these machines often give only 3-5 minutes of air before requiring more coins. Unscrew the small black plastic cap at the top of the tubular valve protruding from the inner surface of your tyre. It’s often located in a recess in your wheel covers. Push the nozzle of the air line hard onto the threaded end of the tyre valve. You will hear air rush out as the valve opens. Push hard enough until the air stops escaping, and look at the gauge on the airline. The indicator will now show you the pressure of the air in the tyre. If it is below the correct value, squeeze the trigger on the airline hose, and this will force air into the tyre. You will see the indicator on the air line gauge going up. When it reaches the correct level, pull the air line off the tyre valve. No air will escape as the valve prevents this. Screw the plastic cap back onto the valve. Repeat for each tyre. Every third or fourth time you do this, you should also do the same to the spare tyre.
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