Eight Ways To Save Money On Your Car

Before you passed your driving test, it seemed like a million people told you just how expensive it was to run and own a car.

Yet no matter how many people told you of the expense that you’d face, the reality of it doesn’t actually kick in until you own your own car and you realise just how much money you really need to spend on it.

Fortunately, owning a car doesn’t need to mean you have no spare money and these eight tips all explain how you can save money on your car.

1. Lease – whilst buying your car outright is without doubt the most common way to make a car purchase, if you want to save money and are the type of person who changes their car regularly, a car lease could be the perfect solution for you.

Meaning you don’t actually own the car, taking out a car lease means that you can have the car that you want by paying a certain amount of money and then receiving a newer model once the initial agreement has expired and renewed.

2. Drive properly – you might think that you are driving properly at the moment, but unless you’re driving like you did when you were learning to drive, you can change your driving habits so that you can save money on fuel.

Accelerating harshly and braking late are two of the most common reasons for not driving correctly and both of them can lower your fuel consumption considerably.

3. Car share – should you work with people who live near to you, you could save money on the amount of fuel that you spend commuting to and from work, as well as your car parking fees, by sharing the journey and splitting the costs with a colleague.

4. Pay for a full year’s tax – when the time comes around to pay for your car’s vehicle tax, it’s strongly recommended that you pay for a full 12 months, rather than just six and this is for the simple fact that it will cost you more over the year if you pay in two separate instalments.

5. Use insurance comparison websites – the golden rule when buying car insurance is that you need to receive quotes from a number of different providers and the easiest way to do this is to use insurance comparison websites.

Allowing you to receive quotes from a number of different providers after inputting your details just once, it’s a quick and effective process that means you can very often get the cheapest deal currently on the market.

6. Get your car serviced… - simple and straightforward, by having your car serviced once a year, you can ensure that any minor issues are discovered and rectified before they develop into serious problems.

7. Maintain it yourself – having some basic knowledge of mechanics is a great way to save money on your car as you can ensure that should something go wrong, rather than having to take it to a garage to get fixed straightaway, you can carry out some basic diagnostics and see if it’s anything that you can resolve yourself.

8. Know what is tested on an MOT – an MOT is something that every car over three years old has to go through.  The test can work out costly, however, if your car fails and has to go through a retest, which is something that can happen if your car has a really minor issue, such as no water in the windscreen washer tank.

Find out what will be checked during the MOT, give your car the once over before it’s due to be tested and you should hopefully not have to go through a retest or pay for any potentially expensive repairs.