If you're like me, you drive your car everywhere. But after 15 years of reliable services, dents and rust now cover my car's hood, trunk and doors. I don't want to sell my car and buy a new one, so I decided to take it to an auto body and paint shop. Not only did the shop repair the dents and remove the rust, the technicians repainted it. If your car or truck looks less than stellar, take it to an auto body shop for repairs. My blog shows you where to look for the best auto body services and how to even perform your own repairs at home. Don't sell your car. Give it a makeover instead.
After being involved in an accident, many drivers may be tempted to keep driving without fixing the auto body damage. The vehicles can be seen on the road almost any day; hanging bumpers, crushed corners and dented doors can be an ugly sight to see, but financial decisions may push any driver into compromising repairs for other bills. Unfortunately, there are some other issues that could become expensive if you leave the auto body alone. Before ignoring auto body damage, take the time to understand a few other costly areas.
Gas Mileage Issues From Resistance
Your vehicle is designed to be as efficient as possible while moving forward. The auto body design brings a lot of different features to the way you drive, such as being stable while turning during shifting winds or staying on the ground at high speeds instead of flipping out into a dangerous situation.
Drag is the issue that auto body designs are made to reduce. Drag represents the amount of aerodynamic resistance that a vehicle may be subject to, which varies depending on where the wind resistance is coming from.
You can experience the potential problems with drag by holding your hand outside of the car window while the car is moving and feeling the wind pushing back on your hand. That feeling of capturing the force of wind is the same experience that certain dents or damaged auto body parts could be dealing with.
If your vehicle is being pushed back in strange ways due to dents, your vehicle is dealing with more resistance than it was designed for. Although this isn't necessarily catastrophic, it means that your vehicle may need to work harder to maintain more speed and that more gas needs to be consumed.
To understand this concern, think about the changes in gas prices. Does an increase in gas prices affect your wallet and the way you budget? If so, there is just as much of a cost issue becoming worse if you ignore auto body problems.
Increased Wear And Tear
Along with consuming more fuel, an engine that has to work harder may wear out sooner.
Car engine mileage is tracked in order to keep a rough estimate about how long the engine may last. Regular maintenance is necessary to keep an old engine up and running, but pushing the vehicle to higher and more aggressive paces can accelerate the problem.
The moving parts inside the car engine have to work harder, increasing the number of times that pistons stroke through their cylinders or the amount of violent vibrations that the entire system has to deal with. Depending on how bad the vehicle damage is, you may have some external shaking caused by a dented fender or hood that creates even more of a problem.
Instead of allowing your car to shake apart and work itself to failure faster, contact an auto body mechanic (such as one from High Point Body & Paint) to fix the problem before it becomes more expensive.
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