The oil companies started self serve fuel to wipe out independent operators. Supermarkets are finally killing of the last driveway service.

In the last couple of weeks a near relative narrowly escaped a blow-out and likely serious accident on the freeway where she was headed. We had stopped her as she reversed onto the road with an obviously almost deflated tyre, one of a new set of four, that had a slow leak. Underinflation, say by 25%, is hard to see with radials. Yet it is extremely dangerous.

When the tyre was removed from the rim (yeah, most drivers would never have had that done) the high quality tyre was found to be in an advanced state of delamination from being driven with low pressure. By way of warning, this car does low mileage.

Today I helped another elder whose otherwise bullet-proof Toyota had very low oil (oil filler plug replaced without a new gasket last service it seems). Perhaps discount servicing doesn't always extend to new gaskets. Why would they carry a range anyhow? Maybe the servicing guys are not trained mechanics. In the extreme temperatures of summer that could have resulted in rapid onset engine seizure and a pile-up as the driver reacted, or tried to get off the road.

I wonder how much poor servicing is contributing to road accidents and the costs of car ownership. It is an area where market forces should not be allowed to rule entirely. It is unreasonable to state that it is the solely the owner's responsibility, so there! The oil companies and the supermarkets rule and that is not always for your good.

State and federal governments waste millions on bureaucrats producing brochures on road safety. Practical solutions seem to be beyond them.

Ignorance is not an excuse. If you drive a car you are responsible for its road worthiness. You don’t have to get under a vehicle to know you have a leak. Leaving tire pressure up to someone else is asking for trouble.
Oil these days is good for 12 months between changes, and that is a good reason for frequent checks. Tire pressure can alter from day to day. If a driver does not know the condition of the car they are driving , they best leave it alone.
To try and make this somehow the responsibility of a third party is just ridiculous. Any type of machinery that moves has to be regularly checked , that is common sense as a matter of safety.

579,

To take an example, a senior can experience difficulty using the air pump at the garage. There is a requirement for wrist and finger strength and a certain knack to it with most pumps.

S/he is likely willing to pay a bit extra for driveway service.

I have already given some clues, now what do you imagine is preventing that service from being provided?

Now think really hard about those prices and the 4c discounts and whether the supermarkets are actually saving you money or controlling the market and to the disadvantage of the consumer

579,

Where do you get your oil?
Or do you do an inordinately low number of miles/year?

I always buy good oil, the Statesman uses none between chances, yet I change oil every 5,000 Kilometres; which distance I do, on average, every six weeks.
I check the tyre pressures every fill up; I have an on-board battery charger and plug the lead in every couple of days to make sure that the battery is fully charged.
The car is a modern automatic and as such, cannot be 'clutch' started. The battery is therefore vital, especially in the bush.

I'm a young 81 and still get under the car and check that things appear alright but there are folk half my age who are not as fortunately agile as I, and they have to depend on third parties to do their servicing for them, especially women who have no technical background.
Then there are the disabled drivers who depend utterly on service centres to make sure that their vehicles are kept up to scratch.

Getting reliable servicing is a problem however and I have seen the results of bad servicing, one that comes to mind was a ventilated front disc brake that had worn through to the vents, I kid thee not!!

OTB, consumers have fuelled the discounting and cost cutting which has ultimately lead to the cutting of services.

If a garage were to offer full driveway servicing, and charge say 4c per litre for it, they would go broke.

Remember, we can all have anything we want, we just have to pay for it, and there in lies the problem.

On the other hand im sure anyone can call in to their local tyre shop and have their tyres, wheels, even fluids checked, you just have to be willing to pay the fee.

Cost cutting is a dirty game and someone has to pay the price. This is one such example.

rehctub, "If a garage were to offer full driveway servicing, and charge say 4c per litre for it, they would go broke"

The discount ticket is a scam to shed competition to control the market and proved to be so by one of the SEQld radio stations that led a campaign against it. I am not bothered to search for that campaign. It should be obvious to most as the common tactic used elsewhere to destroy competition. You are a butcher, maybe you might think about it. Cross-subsidisation by the retail giants could easily send you to the wall. Then they can increase prices in a largely competition free environment.

However, in a civil society it is not good enough that service stations providing a necessary service and of enormous cost/benefit to road safety and the financial good of citizens are being forced out of business by ruthless supermarkets who have entered the scene.

Those independent garages are not being replaced either. Most are closed and the land sold to developers.

I don't see why our taxes should go to supporting road safety bureaucrats who have yet to discover the essential link between inadequate and occasional tyre pressure checks and road accidents, and that the solution is so simple. -Not to the satisfaction of those large retailers who make political donations and whose CEOs shower presents on politicians.

Is mise.
At 5,000 Kms every 6 weeks you can save yourself a job and not worry the battery about charge.
An average driver does 15000 k’s / yr I suppose anything over that you get new oil.
We are trying to see the way clear for disability help with the NDIS

In the 60s I knew a bloke who had a part time job in a service station 3 nights a week doing driveway service. If he thought you were arrogant, or not smiling sweetly enough at him, he would leave you with one tyre at 15lb, but another at 60lb. I wouldn't expect he was that unusual, so if you trust driveway service, as the drink driving add says, "you're a bloody idiot".

The fact is we should never have let women learn to drive. I blame the rise of the horrible woman's lib type on this mistake we blokes made.

My lady has not opened a bonnet, or checked a tyre in the last 40 years. Fortunately I occasionally drive her car, & often find it way past it's service kilometres.

I did once find that my youngest daughter had done 25,000 kilometres since her last oil change. She had been topping it up at least. When I did an oil change for her that afternoon she thought I'd bought the wrong oil. Hers she told me was black, not that honey coloured stuff I'd got.

As it is a female trait to not look after cars, & according to statistics, they have less, or at least less damaging accidents than we blokes, perhaps this is not such a great problem.

The US new vehicle Standard requires tyre pressure monitoring on new cars.

A useful report,

http://www.maic.qld.gov.au/forms-publications-stats/pdfs/tyre-pressure-report-final.pdf

With a 4X4 and going to remote places I am probably more conscious of the seriousness of low pressure at speed, even approaching the speed limit set for built-up suburbs. A slow leak is an automatic lost tyre, expensive! Or a rollover. As well, not many lost tyres to be entirely out of spares and in the proverbial.

However slow leaks are likely in cities too, particularly where building work is being done. Traffic is faster. It only takes one accident to ruin a day, or a life.

Perhaps the only solutio is for new vehicles to come equipped with tyre pressure sensors. A vehicle should have sensors and warnings for all essential systems and tyres are critical.

If anyone is interested, this unit @ $670.00 ex GST [LSM Technologies / Doran RV360 Tyre Monitoring System] is about the best I have found and it has two spares,

http://www.lsmtechnologies.com.au/item.cfm?category_id=2881&site_id=17&product_id=123

$Dear but cry once. I have nothing to do with the company.

579,

I'd still like to know the brand of oil that is good for 12 months driving.
No problem keeping the battery fully charged all I have to do is push the female end of the lead onto the male connection in the car.
I used to have recurring battery problems with the Statesman because in my ignorance when the battery needed replacement I followed the maker's instructions, I now have a battery fitted that exceeds what they thought was sufficient, if there was room I'd fit two batteries in parallel as the NRMA does on their service vehicles.
I'd also like to fit a fuel filter that I can see into but there are major problems attached to that.
The current filter is just in front of the fuel tank and requires the car to be jacked up to get at it.
The last time that I got a heavy dose of contaminated fuel from a service station I had to keep stopping until sufficient fuel could seep through the clogged filter to allow me to do a few more miles, fortunately i was close to home.

NDIS? Not yet, I'm still able to get about and last Saturday at the pistol range I managed,in the Rapid Fire match, to fire 6 shots in under 5 seconds from a replica single action 1873 model revolver.
Score: 3x9, 2x8 and 1x7 for a score of 40 out of 50.

Every car owner needs to be responsible over his/her own vehicle. If not properly monitored, the physical condition of the car’s interiors will deteriorate over time if not serviced regularly which might in turn cause unnecessary breakdowns. Every incident then affects other road users causing avoidable inconvenience.

"Every car owner needs to be responsible over his/her own vehicle"

Agreed and no-one is disputing that.

The question is how to make that possible and practical for everyone to do and as often as it should be done.

"The annual economic cost of road crashes in Australia is enormous—estimated at $27 billion per annum—and the social impacts are devastating"
https://infrastructure.gov.au/roads/safety/