Budget for Maintenance in Novi
July 11, 2017
July 11, 2017
Sometimes busy Novi residents dream about going back to the “simpler” days of our grandparents. But if you could travel back in time and take a road trip around Michigan in a Model T, you might change your mind. The improved designs and quality of today's automobiles have significantly reduced the amount of time Novi residents spend at the side of the road during breakdowns. With proper maintenance, today's vehicles can stay on the road longer than ever before.
Some of those improvements, however, have led to higher repair costs. For example, older cars often broke down from vapor lock. Gas vaporized while traveling from the gas tank to the fuel pump. No gas, no power. The car quits going. The solution was simple — you just sat by the road until the car would start up again. Today's Novi drivers would hardly tolerate that kind of inconvenience, and it's likely that yesterday's Novi drivers didn't care much for it, either. So on today's vehicles, the fuel pump is actually located inside the gas tank. Problem solved. No more vapor lock. The downside is that now it costs a lot more to repair or replace a fuel pump at Novi area auto service centers.
Novi drivers certainly should be grateful for the improvements in auto design that keep us off the side of the road, but it comes at a price. Vehicle care in Michigan simply costs more than it used to. So if you think about it, Novi drivers can avoid many vehicle repairs by preventive maintenance. If we plan for maintenance, we can avoid a lot of costly repairs.
Just a bit of auto advice from Sovel's Auto Service: If you like new vehicles and can afford them, then buy them. But if you are buying a new vehicle every few years because you're afraid of the higher repair costs for older vehicles, then you ought to take a second look at the numbers. You can save a lot of money on car payments and Michigan auto insurance with an older vehicle and preventive auto maintenance can help you avoid most car repair bills. And if you budget for preventive maintenance you have done at Sovel's Auto Service, it can become as routine as a car payment — only a whole lot less!
Sovel's Auto Service
41425 W. 10 Mile Rd.
Novi, Michigan 48375
248-348-7337

June 7, 2026
Think about this the next time youre driving. Your front wheels can steer your vehicle and, at the same time, the wheels can move, even with all the irregularities in the road moving them up, down and in different directions. Pretty amazing engineering, wouldnt you say? What allows that are part... More

May 31, 2026
Power steering is standard on nearly every vehicle in Novi, Michigan, these days. Now there are some exotic, new types of power steering systems, but for the most part, the general setup is a pump that's driven by a belt powered by the engine. Contact the automotive professionals at Sovel's Au... More

May 24, 2026
Your vehicles engine is an engineering work of wonder with many complex parts working in harmony to get you down the road. One of those simple but important components is called a serpentine belt. It is driven by a pulley on the engine and transfers that power to many of your engines most importa... More