Memorial Day Weekend Safety Tips

Before you go anywhere this weekend, visit your friends at Pacific Honda to make sure you are up to date and safe to be on the road. Here are a few pointers we found to help!

It’s getting warm outside. Students are getting out of school for the year. On top of all of that, Memorial Day is less than a week away, and you’re bound to be hitting the highway for a getaway.
Unless you’re renting a car, chances are you’ll need to make sure your old jalopy is roadworthy, so the Car Care Council has thoughtfully put together a few tips to get you on your way:

• Schedule a tuneup.
• Check your brakes and your battery to make sure it’s corrosion-free.
• Check fluids in your car, including engine oil, washer fluid, coolant, power steering fluid, and brake and transmission fluid. Checking your air filter and oil filter are probably good ideas, too.
• Check belts and hoses to make sure they’re not cracked or worn.
• Check your tires to make sure they’re not over-worn or over or under-inflated.
• Lastly, make sure your gas cap is tight, not broken, and does its job.

Of course, if you’ve done all of these recently, you’re in the clear. To add to that, from personal experience, having a good auto club membership that may be able to tow you to a shop or change a tire is always helpful. "Being the awesome guy I am, I once found that my old lug nut wrench wasn’t doing anything but stripping the nuts when I was attempting to change a tire on my old car. Rather than make sure I couldn’t get the tire off at all, I called AAA before I did too much damage. Its trucks almost always have air-powered wrenches that can do the trick."
So putting away your pride is also a good way to do it. And if your car leaks a little, as so many old cars do, carry a bottle of whatever you may need, whether coolant or oil, and be handy with it. The best thing you can do is know what your car does and be able to proactively tend to it.
After that, happy trails, good luck, and safe travels!

Written By: Jacob Brown
Source: Car Care Council