The one place to not cut expenses during these tough times is on car maintance. In the end it will increase the cost to keep your vehicle safe and serviceable. Something as simple as an oil change can extend the life of your engine and avoid a very expensive replacement later on. When oil reaches the end of its serviceable life it will lose its lubrication properties and turn to sludge which will plug the passages causing engine failure. This condition is worse on newer vehicles where the cramped engine compartments and lighter metals cause excessive heat buildup. Also most shops do a safety inspection while servicing and this can also help prevent expensive repairs in the future. I know your first thought is I am being ripped off and that is a possibility and I will cover more on that subject in a later blog.If your car develops a miss IE rough running or vibrating engine, locate and repair the cause, as this may cause excessive fuel to build up in the cylinder as it is not being burned completely. This will contaminate the oil and in time cause bearing failure it can also lead to a carbon build up which can also lead to problems. Using cheap fuels can also cause a carbon problem. More on fuels later.Brakes are another place where we tend to ignore the problem but trust me it will not repair itself. It is one problem if your car won’t start but it leads to a completely different set of problems if it won’t stop. Here again the longer we put off the repair the cost increases.Many years ago when I was a tech A fellow tech used to say he felt like Scrooge around Christmas time ,because he knew he was taking dollars away from Xmas for car repairs, he used to console himself with the thought “fix it now or pay more later”.Bottom line, putting off car repairs because of cost will come back and cost more in the long run. I know it is sometimes tough to spend the money and I wish I had some kind of hint that could help put off needed repairs but there is no short cut.