Drivers of all ages are reducing their spending on car maintenance during the recession, it has been discovered.
Two separate reports released this week - one by Kwik-Fit and another by Glass.co.uk - identified that people are procrastinating when it comes to carrying out basic checks.
Kwik-Fit found that young drivers in particular are keener to spend their cash on a night out rather than having a service or MOT performed on their cars.
Meanwhile, Glass.co.uk discovered that 46 per cent of people had deferred some car-based expenditure over the course of the last 12 months.
"While it is inevitable that some consumers will respond to deteriorating economic conditions by cutting back on aspects of their motoring expenditure, it is concerning that scheduled services and tyre purchases are being deferred," commented Andy Carroll, managing director at Glass.co.uk.
Of those questioned by Kwik-Fit, 14 per cent of the car-owning students said they had driven on a worn out tyre, while seven per cent had taken to the roads without a valid MOT certificate.
Furthermore, five per cent had driven without any road tax and three per cent without car insurance.
"It is only natural that students want to spend what little remainder they have of their student loans on leisure pursuits, but this mustn't be at the cost of road safety," claimed Kwik-Fit's customer services director David White.
He suggested that parents should do all they can to convince their children to keep up with car maintenance, revealing that buying vouchers for MOT servicing could be one way of keeping them safe.
Glass.co.uk, on the other hand, stressed that cars with a full service history are more likely to be successful on the resale market than those which do not. Carrying out important checks can make all the difference, it added. |
0 comments
