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Keeping a car healthy, or making it weak and sick
A mechanic works on a car engine. Photo/FILE
What you need to know:
- Things like your genes and your age are parallel factors, but if your situation and environment allow you to observe the healthy lifestyle principles there is a high probability that you will remain in generally good health, best able to lead a long, productive and trouble-free life.
- It is this way of living, constantly — not an annual check-up and quick fixes — that keeps people healthy.
One way to more clearly understand the mechanical mysteries of vehicle “roadworthiness” might be to think of it in terms of “human health".
Everybody recognises the benefits of being healthy, and there is increasing awareness of what helps keep you well and what is likely to make you sick.
Your health depends above all on your lifestyle — especially your diet (quantity, quality and balance of food types); sufficient exercise (strength, flexibility, aerobic fitness, body-mass control), good hygiene, emotional ease and avoidance of physical stress, injury or exposure to toxins or infection.
Things like your genes and your age are parallel factors, but if your situation and environment allow you to observe the healthy lifestyle principles there is a high probability that you will remain in generally good health, best able to lead a long, productive and trouble-free life. It is this way of living, constantly — not an annual check-up and quick fixes — that keeps people healthy.
In counterpoint, if you are starving or eat junk food in bad balance or excessive quantity; lack regular physical activity; smoke and/or binge-drink; get overweight; bash your mind and body with stress and fatigue; and live in a sea of dirt and disease (whether by negligence or forced circumstance) the chances are you will be generally unhealthy and much more likely to get sick.
And an annual check-up will not prevent or remedy the consequences. The overarching message here is that health is primarily determined by “lifestyle” – not what you might do once a month or once a year, but what you do and where you go and how you behave and the circumstances you face and the care you take …every day! A surprisingly similar set of principles apply to the health (roadworthiness) of your car.
And its “lifestyle” is determined by how it is driven, the roads it is driven on, the work it is expected to do, and how diligently and competently it is maintained. A car’s genes are its design, construction and specifications. Its diet, exercise and hygiene are its daily driving treatment and routine care, cleaning, lubrication, maintenance and adjustment; its stress avoidance is moderate driving and loading; and its environment is the condition of roads and the quality of workshops.
Take care of all those elements and your vehicle will run well, free of defects and lead a long and trouble-free life. It is this way of using and caring for a car – every day - that will keep it roadworthy, not an annual check-up and quick fix.
Equally, if those principles are neglected your car is likely to run badly, develop defects, break down, require expensive treatment, and splutter its way to an early scrapyard.
An annual check-up will not prevent or remedy faults caused by misuse and neglect and/or by daily use on diabolical roads. That is why real improvement in the roadworthiness of all vehicles will depend on better driving and owner care, better roads, better workshops, and better (and more affordable) parts.
If a car leads a healthy life, annual inspection is not necessary. If a car leads an unhealthy life, annual inspection is not helpful – it will always be too little, too late. You don’t keep healthy by being a slovenly couch potato for 364 days and then going for an annual check-up!
