Being able to avoid big repair bills is a valuable ability for any car or truck owner. However, many don’t know what they can actually do in order to stave off many common repair costs. To help you spend more time on the road and less in the repair shop, here are five great tips to help avoid big repairs and repair bills.

Pre-Purchase Research

One of the very best and chronologically first steps to avoiding lots of repair costs is through educated vehicle shopping prior to ownership. Being an informed shopper helps to prevent future regrets in the form of price-jacking, scams, poorly performing products, and more. This is especially true in a high-value purchase such as a car or truck.

So, how does one go about being an informed consumer here? Do research on the vehicle seller as well as the vehicle you may potentially buy. Kelly Blue Book, CarFax, and Edmunds are three reliable online sources for vehicle information. Meanwhile, word-of-mouth and social media platforms are good ways to check out the history of most sellers.

Preventive Maintenance is Priceless

You may have heard the sage advice before, and we can’t help but to continue to drive home its importance – stay on top of your vehicle’s maintenance needs. Even when it may seem silly, from a mechanical standpoint, such preventive maintenance catches problems in their earlier phases, thus leading to fewer subsequent problems and repair costs. This applies to all areas of the vehicle, whether you plan to physically address them yourself or not.

Research Repair Provider

Here, we can revert back to the concept discussed above of being an overall informed consumer and becoming educated about a purchase before actually making it. This is also true of the purchasing of repair services. Not all mechanics are created equally, and you want to be sure that the one you hire is up to the job and at a reasonable cost.

It’s also important to understand your potential mechanic’s terms and conditions should their work fail once you’re back out on the road. Again, social media and word-of-mouth can often provide a fairly clear picture here. In addition, the business lookup resources of the Better Business Bureau can also be extremely helpful.

Provide Your Own Parts

Not all, but many repair shops actually make a considerable percentage of their profits on the price markup of parts to be used in their customer’s repairs. Just like you can, they go to a parts supplier and purchase parts for the best prices they can possibly get. Then, at repair time, they resell those same parts at a much higher price. To avoid this particular addition to your repair costs, simply purchase the necessary parts from a parts supplier yourself and then provide them to your mechanic for use in your repairs.

Trade Out Early

Finally, if none of the above options provide quite the remedy you need, you can consider trading out your vehicle early. Trading when repairs are already needed will typically drop the price offered for the vehicle. However, in situations where you know that many repair and maintenance benchmarks are just over the horizon, you can often trade out or sell your vehicle for a decent price before actually reaching that dreaded point. As a rule of thumb, some drivers even faithfully cycle out and seek new transportation at a pre-designated mileage so as to always be rid of a vehicle before it becomes a regular problem to maintain.

In the end, it’s not a realistic expectation to completely abstain from some repair bills at some point in vehicle ownership. However, one can truly limit their time and money spent at this crossroads by following some of the valuable, above-mentioned suggestions. By avoiding more of those big repair bills, you keep more of your hard-earned money when it’s all said and done.