Gear oil and other fluids

First of all, check your car's service book or try to recall when you last changed:

1. The oil in the automatic transmission.
2. The coolant.
3. The brake fluid.
4. The power steering fluid.

As it turns out, every single one of these needs to be changed periodically without fail! Don't smile — plenty of inexperienced car owners genuinely don't know this, or, more often, simply forget about it. The interval is capped both by time (three years at the outside, but usually two) and by mileage (this figure is specific to your car and is listed in its service book, usually somewhere around 60,000 km). So if you don't know when any of this was last changed, or the deadline has already passed or is coming up — autumn is the most convenient time to change all these fluids.

If you have a manual transmission, check your car's documentation — as a rule, manufacturers don't call for regular oil changes in a manual gearbox. Either way, you definitely need to check that it's topped up.

Here's another basic truth: even if you're not planning to change all the fluids listed above this year, checking their level and condition matters especially before winter (this should really be done at every service, but far from every mechanic at a service station remembers to). It also wouldn't hurt to check the oil level in the rear axle (if your car has one).