BellaOnline Forums Home and Garden Organization Organizing Car Records

Until now I've always had a folder in my desk for car stuff. I toss everything in there. Each year those receipts and such go upstairs with my other tax records.

However, this means I don't have any coherent "life of the car" record that I can easily access about when oil changes were done, when spark plugs were changed, and so on. I take my car maintenance very seriously because I need it to work. It's important to me not to be stranded.

Bob is bringing me home a binder today and I'm finally going to get my car's life all organized. I'll put in pages for the oil changes, the spark plug changes, and everything else. For example it's winter now and I have NO idea when the tires were last changed on this car!! That's critical to know with the snow we get.

So that'll be a project for today.

How do you guys organize your car records?

I love the binderization of things. Making the binders is so fun. My favorite ones are the ones with sleeves on the outside that I can slip artwork or referrence papers into.

I have a composition book i use for my RV records that I staple and tape things into. I need one for my car too. I was afraid to start one for it, since I have been through four cars this year.

OK I even went into the attic and pulled down my auto folders for past years. I got this car in 2006 so that was three years up there plus 2010 down here and the current records. I use plastic slip-in thingies to put the receipts and such into.

So now everything from 2006 through today is in one spot! Hurrah! Now I know that 2 of my tires were replace in 2007 and 2 in 2009. The ones in 2007 were 50,000 mile tires and my mileage was 68,000 miles. I know I hit 110,000 miles back in May 2010 so I'm definitely overdue.

The ones in 2009 were 70,000 mile tires, at 93,000 miles, so those should still be good.

Feeling better. Getting a handle on things.

Dear Jilly -

Take that first step! Who knows, it could just be practice, which is fine

I'm a firm believer in caring for cars!

I do think this car is a keeper. I spent enough on it (for me at least).

At least when i sell my RV the buyer will get several full composition books of notes to show my love, care and attention.

I keep my auto maintenance records in the car. Whenever I have something done I put the receipt in a folder in the glove box. This works best for me because I can do it immediately. I don't have to worry about schlepping the paperwork into the house and getting it into the right file. Plus I am most likely going to want to reference those records when I am at the auto shop. It's great to be able to immediately check the historical data.

The best advice is do whatever works for you. There is no one size fits all solution when it comes to organizing. Consistency is the most important thing.

Jilly, the future buyer of your RV will owe you a big debt of gratitude for keeping such detailed notes. I am impressed!

Thanks KellyJayne! I wanted to be the kind of owner that I would want to buy from. I did not take as good a care of the rv as I would have liked, but it's not in worse shapef from having been lived in, and that's something.

My tires are done! And Bob even got me a green binder to use instead of the white one, so it is color coded and I can spot it and grab it quickly when I need to.

Progress! I love progress!

The next thing on that list is to look at the "should have been done by 120k miles" items like fuel filters and serpentine belts, so we'll talk to our mechanic next about a check-up.

I am convinced if people took an organized approach to car maintenance cars could be driven for many more miles. I am glad to hear you got your binder set up Lisa. I second the love for progress!

On the down side, I keep asking Bob to call in about the "should have done" list and he keeps not doing it. He thinks I'm being overzealous, that if they haven't been done that they don't need to be done (like the serpentine belt). Tomorrow I will just call in myself since clearly it's been quite a while that he's been putting me off