Before you drive to the Outer Banks: a real pre-trip check
The seven things worth checking before a long drive out of Richmond, in the order they're most likely to strand you, and the two-week rule that makes it useful.
Nearly every roadside failure on a long drive was visible before the car left the driveway. The problem is that people check the car the night before, which is the one time it’s too late to do anything about what they find.
Two weeks out. That’s the rule. It leaves room to order a part.
1. Tires — including the spare
The most common thing that ends a trip.
Check tread depth at three points on each tire. Check pressures cold, against the door jamb sticker, not the sidewall number. Look for sidewall bulges, cracking, and anything embedded in the tread.
Then check the spare, which almost nobody does. A spare that’s been under the trunk floor for six years is frequently flat, and a temporary spare has its own pressure — usually much higher, often 60 psi. Confirm the jack and the wrench are actually in the car, and if your wheels have a locking lug nut, confirm the key is too. That last one strands people in parking lots regularly.
Read more on reading your own tread.
2. Battery
Heat kills batteries, and a long summer drive is a long hot soak. If yours is past three years old, get it load-tested — voltage alone tells you almost nothing.
A battery that’s marginal at home is a battery that doesn’t restart after a fuel stop in a strange town. More on why batteries fail.
3. Cooling system
Coolant level, coolant condition, and the state of the hoses. Squeeze the upper radiator hose when the engine is cold — it should feel firm and springy. Mushy, rock-hard, or crunchy means it’s due.
Overheating with a loaded car in stopped traffic on a hot day is how a hose becomes a head gasket. The difference is how far you drive after the gauge starts climbing: the answer should be “to the shoulder.”
4. Brakes
More load, more miles, and mountain grades if you’re heading west. Get the pads and rotors measured, and have the fluid tested for moisture — brake fluid absorbs water over the years, and water boils, and a boiled system gives you a pedal that goes to the floor exactly where you least want it.
5. Air conditioning
Not comfort — endurance. Six hours on I-95 in August with a marginal A/C is genuinely miserable, and it’s much cheaper to fix in the spring than in the first week the whole county discovers theirs at once. Why it fades before it dies.
6. Wipers and lights
Virginia summer means afternoon thunderstorms that arrive fast and hard. Wipers live outside in the sun all year and go off quietly. If they chatter or streak, replace them — it’s a ten-minute job.
Walk around the car with the lights on. Have somebody stand behind while you press the brake pedal. Burnt-out bulbs are the cheapest thing on this list and among the most common reasons for both a traffic stop and an inspection rejection.
7. Oil and fluids
If you’ll cross an oil change interval on the trip, do it before you go rather than at a strange shop halfway. Top up washer fluid — bug season on the coastal roads is real and a smeared windshield into a low sun is a genuine hazard.
What to have in the car
- Jumper cables or a jump pack
- A tire pressure gauge
- A flashlight
- Water
- Your insurance and roadside assistance numbers written down, not only in a phone
- A phone charger that works with the car
The one-hour version
If you’d rather not do any of it: bring it in and ask for a pre-trip check. Tires, brakes, battery, cooling, belts, hoses, lights, wipers and fluids, with photographs of anything we find and an honest read on whether it’ll make the trip.
Two weeks out. Call (804) 737-2828 or tell us you’re coming.