Back to all

Budget for Maintenance in Appleton

April 11, 2016

Sometimes busy Appleton 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 Wisconsin 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 Appleton 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 Appleton drivers would hardly tolerate that kind of inconvenience, and it's likely that yesterday's Appleton 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 Appleton area auto service centers.

Appleton 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 Wisconsin  simply costs more than it used to. So if you think about it, Appleton 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 Tuffy Tire & Auto Service Center Appleton: 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 Wisconsin 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 Tuffy Tire & Auto Service Center Appleton, it can become as routine as a car payment — only a whole lot less!

Tuffy Tire & Auto Service Center Appleton
2940 E. College Ave.
Appleton, Wisconsin 54915
920-954-8500

More articles from Tuffy Appleton

Singing a Different Tune (Up) (Tune Ups)

November 30, 2025

Engines required a lot more maintenance in earlier times. You'd have to have your spark plugs, wires, rotors, caps, distributor points, fuel and air filters changed periodically. There were mechanical adjustments of a vehicle's timing, dwell, spark gap and idle mixture, too. Unless you like to ... More

A Most Important Part (Serpentine Belt Replacement)

November 23, 2025

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

Getting Off to a Running Start (Starter Replacement)

November 16, 2025

When you start your vehicles engine, theres another motor that makes that whole process possible. Its called the starter, and its a small electric motor that gets your vehicle running. As you can imagine, its quite a chore for a little electric motor to turn over the big engine that powers you... More