Machines are supposed to make your life easier, but only if maintained properly. Auto maintenance is an important aspect of our road life. Although the advancement of technology has made things much easier for us regarding transportation, there is some work required to achieve that. Your vehicle can create many problems for you if not maintained properly. No matter how good the fluids are, there will always be wear and tear between the moving parts. According to Toyota, a typical car has estimated 30000 parts. No one can overcome the hideous task of maintaining that much parts. While designing automotive engineers add certain design elements and procedure which if followed correctly can make your job easy. There are three types of plans offered by your auto retailer which can further reduce your hassle. They offer service plans, maintenance plan, and warranty.
The service plan of the automobile is categorized in two terms, major service and minor service. No matter how new is your car, there is still some maintenance required. The necessary support of this kind is called as service. As written above there is two type of services offered minor and major. Minor service is mostly related to fluids change like Mobil oil and radiator coolant changes. The major service includes engine cleaning and cam belt change. There are different services offered for the variety of automobile.
Automobile maintenance plan is superior to a service plan. Maintenance plans also include elements of service plan, and in addition to that, it offers many other services. Maintenance is a broad term, and it can include a lot of components. To define it in one line it is a plan which can include replacement of all the moving parts which suffer wear and tear. The example of wear and tear parts is brake pads, batteries, bulb’s, etc. It also may or may not include all those parts which have a wear cycle depending upon the contract.
Warranty is often offered by the manufacturer or the car dealer from whom you bought your product. Warranty of automobile is kind of insurance which is provided in case of manufacturing fault or mechanical failure in a certain period. For example, you bought a brand new vehicle, and after just a few days the engine head is cracked. Now, normally vehicle engines are designed to withstand more than hundred thousand kilometers. But in your case, it worked for only five thousand kilometers. If your car manufacturer is offering engine warranty for one year then it will be replaced without any cost, once again depending on the agreement or plan provided.
The warranty plans are only offered by the manufacturers, but if the product is being purchased from the dealer, then it is offered by the dealer. The terms or the plan is standard and mostly designed by the manufacturer.
The service plan and maintenance plans can be offered by the official dealer of the automobile or any other third party maintenance workshops. If the manufacturer is itself seller of the product, then it can also offer these plans.
To make things simple for you let us see some of the typical examples in Namibia. The official dealership of Ford is with the Novel motor company which is offering service and maintenance plans. Indigo Toyota and Hino is another typical dealer which provides all the above mentioned services.
The question here is how we should intelligently decide over these plans. If you are buying a new vehicle, most of the times it comes with a warranty plan. In case if it is not offered with the standard package then the best choice is to buy your new vehicle with the warranty package which at least covers the engine warranties. For service plans, it is entirely up to you weather you want to buy a plan or want to manage by yourself. If you purchased a new vehicle then most of the time it is covered for initial few months. For old car there is service booklet, if you follow and keep track of it, you can manage it by yourself. Maintenance depends on how old your vehicle is, if it is too old most probably no one will be offering the plan. If your vehicle is new, I believe there is no requirement for maintenance plans. But if your vehicle is neither too old nor new then the best option is to get a maintenance plan from your vehicle dealer.