It's Back to School for Cars as Well

By Dave Trux

For those of us whose kids are all grown and out of the house, it seems like summer has just begun. For the rest of you parents with school aged children, back to school season is right around the corner and just in time to help you reclaim your home and your sanity. While we all love our kids, having a few moments of peace and serenity is a very good thing for all parties concerned.

With the kids on their way back to school, you’re not just going to need to buy the basics, like new clothes and supplies. In many cases, the family car is going back to school with them. Is your car up to the task of transporting them back and forth every weekday as well as all those other extracurricular activities after school and on weekends? Oops, so much for peace and serenity!

If your kids are now old enough to drive, your days of being an unpaid chauffeur are over and your life will become infinitely easier, right? Wrong! You have merely traded in your old problems with a new set of problems to deal with, like ensuring their safety when you’re not around. Unfortunately, whenever you lend your sage words of advice about safety, does your teen treat you like a leper? Welcome to the club!

Surely, things will get easier once junior has graduated from high school, right? I’m sorry to be the bearer of even more bad news, but not exactly. If your overachieving scholar is about to hit the highway towards higher education, it may be as far away from you as possible...ouch!  Do you really want to watch your daughter drive off into the sunset in that old and abused car of hers before having it carefully looked over from bumper to bumper? That wouldn’t be your wisest choice.

My sage words to you is to have a qualified mechanic perform a thorough inspection of the entire vehicle while paying close attention to all the basics, including an inspection of the windshield wipers, fluid levels, an oil change and checking tire condition. Parental peace of mind doesn’t come cheaply or easily, but after all you’ve been through, you deserve nothing less!