The winter season is upon us, and that means you’re going to be putting more strain than usual on your beloved machine. Travelling for the holidays is one thing, of course, but the freezing cold temperature that this season brings can be the death of your car if you don’t take care of it.

If you want to ensure you don’t join one of the thousands of people whose vehicle breaks down unexpectedly over the winter period, then here are some great pieces of advice that might help you better maintain your car and avoid the unthinkable before it ever has to happen.

Start with a little self-maintenance.

There’s a lot you could be doing to service your car all by yourself. Maybe you already do, to some extent, but there could be things you’re forgetting to check; so much goes into running your machine and that means so much can go wrong if you don’t understand what you should be looking for.

Let’s start with the most simple and common piece of advice given to car owners: have you checked the oil level? You might have done in the past, but this has to be a regular check. It’s not about the fact that you might break down on the motorway, though that is something you should be considering over the holiday period; and, let me tell you, it wouldn’t be pleasant, given the amount of traffic there will be on the roads at this time of year.

This is about how efficiently your car’s engine is running. You need to be keeping an eye on more than the fuel gauge. If the oil seems sludgy, then drain or replace it, because you don’t want to be dealing with a problem like that on Christmas day.

There’s much more you need to be checking than that, of course. Tyre pressure is perhaps the most crucial thing to consider in the middle of winter, because roads will be much more slippery than usual. Given the unpredictability of the weather, snowy conditions, or roads coated in grit to remove the snow, will affect the condition of your tyres. Ensure they’re in fighting condition before the brutal season gets underway, because, again, you don’t want to be caught out in the middle of the holidays.

Of course, a proper servicing is necessary.

As adept as you might be at maintaining your vehicle throughout the year, whether it’s summer or winter, at some point you’ll need to have it serviced to check it passes regulations and that you haven’t missed anything which might pose a safety hazard to you, or someone else on the road. Companies such as Stuttgart Autos will service your Mercedes-Benz, but whatever vehicle you have, it’s important to get it checked out.

Think before you drive long distances over the coming months, because getting caught out on a brutal journey with a broken vehicle is awful whatever the situation. Let’s not think about how bad it might be if that were to happen over winter, with heavy rain, snow, traffic, or many other possibly-overwhelming factors with which you have to deal.