Expert Advice and Savings Tips for Maintaining Your Car on a Budget
Many of our customers worry about their cars breaking down, so they buy a new one. That's fine if you really want a new car, but thanks to improved engineering and technology, you can keep the car you have on the road longer than ever before. The trade off for the improved quality found in today's vehicles is higher maintenance and repair costs to keep their sophisticated systems running. The upside for customers who choose to drive their cars a few years longer is that it costs much less than the alternative of getting locked into a monthly car payment on a newer car, which also comes with higher auto insurance costs. If you choose to keep your car instead of buying a newer model, you'll need to keep it well maintained to make it last. Sometimes unexpected repairs will crop up for your car too, but there's no reason to get stressed out about it. The secret to handling routine car maintenance and unexpected car repairs is
budgeting for both before the need for service arises. It can be a struggle to budget for car maintenance and repairs, but it doesn't have to be; thanks to online budgeting tools like the
True Cost to Own® calculator found at
Edmunds.com. [caption id="attachment_1062" align="aligncenter" width="610" caption="Edmund's TCO Calculator Makes Planning a Car Maintenance & Repair Budget Easy"]
[/caption] Let's suppose you have a used
Toyota Camry, a very popular car in the Tempe, AZ area. Your car is paid off, still looks great and still runs well and you'd like to keep driving it. It might even become your teenage son or daughter's first car. Now you can make a budget for maintaining your Camry using Edmunds True Cost to Own® calculator. It's easy to do; you just need to provide some basic information about your car. The calculator estimates the maintenance and repair costs for your car based on where you live, taking into account the manufacturer's recommendations for maintenance for the type of vehicle that you own.
Edmunds.com shows that car owners who live in Tempe, AZ (in the 85284 zip code) can expect to pay an average of $80.00 per month for routine maintenance and repairs on a popular vehicle like the
Toyota Camry during the first five years of ownership.
Likewise, we encourage our customers to set aside this amount each month as an estimated budgeted amount for car maintenance and repairs. The staff at
Elite Auto Repair of Tempe, AZ realizes money is tighter than ever before for many of our customers and this may sound like a lot, but it's much less than the expense of a new car. Budgeting for car maintenance makes good economic sense and will reduce the stress that often comes with unexpected car repairs. Setting aside funds for car maintenance will also help you get the maximum value out of the dollars you spent when you bought your vehicle. When the need for routine maintenance or unexpected repairs arises for your vehicle, you can trust the experts at our Tempe auto repair shop to keep you rolling.
We offer competitive pricing and specials on a variety of car maintenance services, so you can enjoy your current vehicle for years to come without breaking the bank. Call us at
or stop by our conveniently located shop in Tempe for budget friendly service to keep your car running like a champion!
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