What’s your maintenance program

[blown motor]

In the last month I've had a brake shoe lining come off the shoe and the alternator bearing go out on a car that has been trouble free for the last ten years. It got me wondering what kind of a maintenance program people run. Do you just replace alternator, fuel pump, power steering pump, water pump, brakes, thermostat, etc. as a way of preventing breakdowns on the road? A bit of money for sure. Just wondered what everyone does.

[Dmod1974]

For stuff like that, it's fix as fail for me.  The quality of aftermarket or 30x remanned parts these days is so poor that you may inadvertently cause a failure replacing a perfectly good part with subpar crap.  I've been bit by this several times with anything from car parts to appliance parts.  Most recently - I replaced a 12 year old A/C capacitor on my house HVAC worried about having a failure during a heatwave.  Not a week later, we have one and my brand new cap failed.  It was a miserable 2 days until the replacement came in, and you better believe I bought 2 this time to have a spare on hand at all times.

[Blowout]

  and same happened with me on my A/C.

[Brads70]

I have some spare parts always on hand if I'm going on a long road trip. Eg. spare alternator, electric fuel pump, With having 2 cars I make sure both use the same parts when ever possible, so I only have to have 1 spare that fits both cars. EG both the Challenger and the Javelin use the same alternator, power steering pump, MSD box etc...

[Rich G.]

If it ain't broke don't fix it!

[torredcuda]

Mine only gets driven 1-2000 miles a year so other than oil changes and giving it a quick look over once in a while it`s fix if it breaks. In 27 years of driving it since "restored" it`s only had three real issues - one was a broken engine mount at the track after a hard launch, second was a starter relay gone bad and third was an intermitant no start that turned out to be a bad distributor pick up. I drove home nice and easy after the torn engine monut, relay was a quick screw driver jump to start. The car would star after cooling sown with the bad pick up but one time I did call a tow truck after waiting a while and it wouldn`t fire but of course by the time it arrived it fired right up. I did take the tow even though it was only across town as he was already there. I do carry a spare ballast resistor, some fuses and a few basic tools but rarely need them.

[anlauto]

If it ain't broke don't fix it!

I was just coming on to type this 

[blown motor]

We'll I'm not sure. That's what I was doing. If I had of done as I suggested in the first post I would have avoided two breakdowns, both over 150 miles from home and both which would have required a tow except that I was at my fiancée's for one of them.

[Brads70]

I figure as time goes on parts will not be as plentiful. It never hurts to have a milk crate with spare parts in the trunk while going on a longer trip? Likely you will need them at some point. But yes I agree if it's not broke don't fix it.