Help me maintain my wife's car!

February 24, 2008 2:46 PM

Need car maintenance recommendations for a 98 Nissan Sentra GXE and a mechanic recommendation in Denver.

So my wife has a 98 Nissan Sentra GXE with about 50,000 miles on it that has been abysmally maintained. I've done my best to keep up on her oil changes the past couple of years and got her some new tires but I'm at a loss on what is do or die to keep this car running for another say 20,000 miles before we upgrade.

My specific questions are:
1. What are the important mechanisms that need to be checked, replaced, etc... in order to keep this car running well?
2. Can anyone recommend a good mechanic or shop to do the work in the SE Denver Metro area (Cherry Creek, Aurora, DTC areas preferred).

posted by Octoparrot to travel & transportation (2 comments total)

Car Talk's Mechanics Files lets you put in your zip code to find mechanics recommended by other listeners/visitors.
posted by The Deej at 4:09 PM on February 24, 2008

Can't speak to #2, but the owner's manual may lay out a basic maintenance schedule. Failing that, any repair manual should clue you into what you might've skipped. My public library subscribes to an online database of this sort of information; as of 50K miles it looks like most of the regular maintenance would have been inspections of things like brakes, exhaust system, cv boots, transmission fluid, suspension and the exhaust system. At 30K they would've replaced the air filter. None of that would've been very expensive. The big scheduled service comes at 60K miles, when they recommend you replace the spark plugs, coolant and timing belt. Other than those basics, you should focus on finding a trustworthy mechanic and let them inspect it. Cars get driven differently, in different environments, so predicting what'll go wrong with a particular vehicle is pretty difficult. Is your goal to keep the car reliable, or just to prevent catastrophic failure? Each of those scheduled maintenance items is on the list for a good reason, but the risks of ignoring them are not all the same.
posted by jon1270 at 4:34 PM on February 24, 2008