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Easy Ways of Tracking Car Maintenance Using Basic Tools

Easy Ways of Tracking Car Maintenance Using Basic Tools

The way you maintain your car determines how much trouble you’ll have with it down the road. If you stick to what the factories such as BMW or Audi prescribe in terms of maintenance or better, your car will most likely outlast its estimated life cycle. Tracking car maintenance is an essential part of that equation.

Today we’ll try to make the whole process of staying on top of your maintenance cycles somewhat easier. We’ve prepared a few tips that should help you track your service intervals with ease.

car maintenance

Why Track Maintenance?

Most car owners are perfectly happy with a basic maintenance history record. Truth be told, there are so many cars out there with no service history at all. That alone makes the cars with any service history a valuable commodity.

However, tracking your maintenance cycles using the methods we’re about to go into goes past building a vehicle’s basic service history.

If there’s a universal truth regarding car maintenance, it’s that prevention is much, much better than the alternative. By doing oil changes on or slightly before time, you’re ensuring that your engine will last a long time and reach a high mileage with zero issues.

Aside from maintenance, you can also track your fuel consumption. Knowing how much fuel your car is burning at any given point can potentially indicate issues down the line.

Scheduled preventative maintenance keeps large auto repairs at bay, making it a frugal way to maintain a car. If you’re the type of driver who buys a new car and wants to get their money’s worth, this type of advanced service history tracking is a must.

How to Efficiently Track Vehicle Maintenance?

How to Efficiently Track Vehicle Maintenance?

Back in the olden days, you’d have a little booklet or a notebook where you would manually input everything you’ve done on your car. Things are different now. We live in a digital age, and such ‘primitive’ methods are reserved only for those who appreciate the foolproof nature of paper.

Almost everyone else is using some type of aid. We’ll cover two proven methods in this guide – the Excel sheet and several apps that get the job done as well.

Doing It with an Excel Sheet

Microsoft Excel was always the prime tool for dealing with any kind of data. Most people who have come in contact with this software don’t understand just how useful it can be, nor how deep it actually goes.

That being said, you won’t have to learn a bunch of complicated formulas or crazy syntax for what we need. Instead, you’ll just need a few columns.

We usually define 6 columns for most of our cars:

  • Date
  • Mileage
  • Type of Repair
  • Auto Parts Used
  • Price
  • Comment

These 6 columns will give you the most basic information about the services and repairs done to your car.

The date and mileage, as well as price, are all self-explanatory. The repair field should briefly describe the type of work being done on the car. Parts is where you name the part you’ve bought. It’s useful to mention whether the part is new or used, OEM or aftermarket. You can be as detailed as you’d like in this column.

For example, you could input something like “New alternator, OEM, MAKE and part number” and save that.

Next, we have the Comment section. This is a big one. It would help if you used the comment column to write down anything of interest regarding the repair or the parts being used. Stuff like who performed the repair, what shop, which tech, etc.

Use the Comment column to nail down any detail that might come in handy if you need to track down the source of an issue related to that part.

Tracking repairs using Microsoft Excel

Extra tips and Tricks

You can go a step further and make the use of your new sheet much easier by freezing the top row. That way, you’ll always see the title of each column. Furthermore, you can add a sum to your price column, which is a great way to figure out how much a vehicle has cost you so far, or even how much you’ve spent for gas if you want to add that metric as well.

Don’t just input repairs. Use the spreadsheet to log issues that need to be fixed. It’s a good idea to log problems in a different color, say red or similar, and then mark them black when they’re fixed.

The Best Vehicle Management Apps

As far as specific apps go, there are so many that will get the job done. One that sticks out is Drivvo. This is a simple app packed with easy-to-use features that allow you to track your maintenance. It also offers advanced features such as separating your own miles and business miles if you use your vehicle for work. You can track gas mileage, gas consumption in different situations, and more.

We often recommend the CARFAX Car Care app to those who want a simple app that’s free and works both on iOS and Android as well. It’s not better or worse than Drivvo, it’s just slightly different.

CARFAX needs no special introduction. It’s just one of the largest companies out there that allows you to check a vehicle’s maintenance history. The app is free but far from basic. They’ve implemented all the relevant and useful features that a car owner might be looking for.

Either one of these apps will get the job done and then some. That being said, the real move is to utilize both the Excel sheet and one of the apps, combining their features and running a detailed maintenance history on your car.

Where to Get Quality Parts for your Vehicle

Sourcing quality auto parts is arguably one of the most important aspects of car maintenance. Here at eEuroparts.com, we take pride in offering the most extensive catalog of spare auto parts and other automotive products for popular European car brands.

If you own a BMW, Audi, Porsche, VW, Mercedes, FIAT, Volvo, or other brands, we’ve got you covered. To find out what auto parts from our offer fit your car, simply head over to our store and input your car’s details into our navigation tool. Once our system crunches the data, you’ll get a complete list of auto parts.

In case you have any further questions, feel free to get in touch with our customer support service. Our staff is standing by to offer assistance and answer any questions you might have regarding our offer.

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Working on cars is dangerous, always be careful and be aware of the hazards of working on any vehicle. eEuroparts.com (Newparts Inc) is not responsible for any injury, up to and including death, as a result of working on any vehicle suggested or implied on this website.