For obvious reasons, brakes are without a doubt one of the most important parts of your vehicle. Because of this, it’s essential to maintain them properly – not only for your safety, but it can also save you a considerate amount of money. Thankfully, there are many simple and cost effective techniques you can use to make your brakes last longer.
How to maintain your car’s brakes
Decelerating Properly
The harder you break the more pressure you place onto your vehicle’s brake pads – resulting in more wear. If you decelerate quickly from high speeds on a regular basis, you’re putting a great deal of unwanted stress and strain on your brakes. To counter this, try reducing your speed by anticipating when you need to brake and taking your foot off the accelerator beforehand to let your vehicle roll for a while before braking. This helps reduce wear on your brake pads as you allow your vehicle to slow down slightly without even using the brakes.
Keep Your Eyes on the Road
Although it sounds obvious, it’s extremely important to be fully aware of your surroundings and what is ahead at all times. Make sure to keep focussed and try to anticipate any braking you will have to perform. This way, you give yourself plenty of time to take your foot off the accelerator, decelerate properly to let your speed drop, and use the brakes when you really have to.
Remove Unnecessary Belongings
We all leave some of our belongings in our car from time to time, but by doing this you’re actually harming your vehicle. This is because the heavier your vehicle is, the more strain it puts on your brake pads. By regularly driving with unnecessary weight in your vehicle, it can dramatically reduce the life of your brakes. So even though it may be an inconvenience at the time, give your vehicle a clear out. It will make a big difference. Not to worry though, you can still leave your map and emergency hi vis jacket in there – they’re too light to have an impact!
Regular Journeys
If you’re one of the thousands of people that drive to and from work, then you’ll understand that it can often be quite a rush at times. You may think that quickly accelerating and decelerating you’ll reach your destination faster, but it’s actually unlikely that it will save you much time on your journey, and will in fact put a real strain on your brakes. By making small changes to your regular journeys, such as slowing down in a gentler manner, it can improve the lifespan of your brakes by a great deal.
Brake Servicing
Having your brakes regularly checked by a mechanic will give you the opportunity to get small issues fixed before a larger problem occurs. By spending a small amount of money now, it could save you money in the long run from having to replace your brakes entirely.
At Lindleys Autocentres we offer a completely free basic brake check for any vehicle to ensure your brakes are in perfect working order.
To find out more about our brakes services, take a look at the Brakes page on our website.
