Is my Vehicle ready for a Road Trip?

Is my vehicle ready for a road trip? Welcome to Mercie J, where compassion and craftsmanship come together, I'm Rick Smith.

So first of all let me just say that you should regularly have your brakes and suspension checked by a professional when your oil is being serviced. Assuming that those are good, the first thing that I want you to do is make sure that your tire pressures are up. If you don't know how to read the date code, we will include a link to a video for that below so you can learn how to read it. We want tires to be less than 6 years old and we want the them aired up because on the road, especially if you're traveling across the desert, we don't want to blow a tire because we got a lot of heat there.

Next we're going to check all of our fluids. We're going to make sure that the oil is full. We're going to make sure that the coolant, antifreeze, radiator fluid whatever you want to call it's full. If you have a transmission that can be checked easily, you're going to check that.

Next, I want you to grab all of your battery cables if they're accessible. Make sure they're tight. There's a little trick to check on your battery. Start your car, shut it off, start your car, shut it off. Do this about a dozen times. The vehicle should start healthy every time. If it starts to crank over slow or it quits starting on you, then you know the batteries weak. You don't want that to leave you stranded. A quick inspection of the belts and hoses if you know how to do that. So we've got all of our fluids filled up, we've got our tires ready. Then we want to make sure that our wiper blades are good because we can run into a storm that we may not be ready for. If there's any doubt, just put some fresh ones on.

Next, get someone to help you make sure every light on the car works so that you don't get pulled over and cited for a burned out taillight. At that point you should be pretty good to go. Don't forget make sure that your spare tires aired up as well because if you do need it, it's what gets ignored the most. Then of course, we have some safety things like blankets, water, flashlights, stuff like that and there's some good videos that can help you be prepared on that point.

I hope it's been helpful for you a few things to check before you go on the road. Thanks for watching and until next time, safe travels blessings to you.