Hello all.

I'm writing to see if anyone has any maintenance tips for those of us that have long commutes in order to keep keep wear to the minimum and try to get as much use out of the car.

I have a 2013 Accord that I put about 640 miles a week on my car currently at pretty much all highway driving. I average 70-75 mph and keep the RPMs around 2000-2200. I use synthetic oil and regular gas.

Any tips would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

640 per week. Wow, that's quite a bit. Hopefully it's mostly on flat highways.
I am at about 260 per week. I found that it's helpful to check the tire pressure every few weeks, for you that would be every week. Also rotation, balance and alignment are very important when you drive over 65 all the time.

 

Good chance that you're actually EASIER on the car. Large portion of engine wear happens right at startup, in the 10 or 15 seconds it takes for oil to circulate. You are doing fewer startups for every 1000 miles.

I would take it easy until the temperature gauge comes up to normal, and don't drive like a maniac anyway. If you really need to have that kind of fun, you'll pay for it in maintenance & repair. Your money, your choice.

Automatic transmission? If so, I'd probably change the ATF more often than the maintenance schedule calls for. Honda had a run of problem automatics, but that was long before 2013.

Your maintenance-minder might come up with oil changes at 7k or 8k miles. That doesn't mean you can go that long without checking the dipstick for oil level. Try to check that every week or 2. I've heard of people really screwing up their engines because they never check stuff like that.

You'll probably go through brakes & oil-changes faster than most people if you measure by the calendar. But keep up the maintenance & the car will be able to last a long time.

 

Hmmm, interesting comment about the brakes. A few years back I was driving roughly 650-700 miles per week, and while oil changes came up pretty frequently (in spite of the fact that I was using a 12,000 mile OCI on a car with a factory OCI of 7,500 miles), brakes would last nearly forever. During the last 100,000 miles I had the car (when I was doing all of the driving), I got 75,000 miles out of a set of Goodyear Assurance TripleTred tires, and 90,000 miles out of a set of front brake pads (the rears had nearly 120,000 on them when I traded the car in).

Maybe the OP doesn't have the kind of commute I had, but I'd leave home, touch the brakes once, or twice, or not at all (depending on the two lights between me and the freeway), then drive 75 miles to work, use the brakes on the off-ramp and a few times into the parking lot. The only real time the brakes got a workout was when my son had a soccer tournament in the Boston area.

 

Well, yeah, that's right about the brakes. I have no idea exactly what kind of commute the OP has; whether his highway traffic allows him to drive without often touching the brakes. So really, brake life isn't something I should try to predict over the web.

I guess what I was getting at, is all the routine maintenance comes up at proper odometer intervals, but the long commute means he does a lot more miles per month.

 

I completely agree.