You should never skip regular maintenance and service checks before any long road trip. Check your spare tyre, the lights of the car, and make sure you have no cracked windows. The right checks ensure your car, your family, and you are safe during any road trip—long or short.
As we head into the festive season, these checks become more important for your safety. During the 2024/25 festive season over 711 184 fines were issued across the roads of South Africa. Many of these are because of faulty lights, failed mechanics, or because of accidents caused by lack of maintenance.
Without the right checks done you may end up stranded somewhere unfamiliar, without any help. Being prepared means you do the right checks, and having a trusted partner to call on whenever & wherever you are in the country.
Doing spot maintenance on your car before a long road trip ensures your engine, wheels, or safety systems won’t fail. Keeping your car in a working state means more than just ensuring it starts up. It needs to be reliable and capable of handling unexpected dangers on the road.
During our everyday commute, most cars don’t reach their full operating temperatures. When you’re doing a long road trip, this changes. Your car will operate for long hours without stopping. Each hour spent on the road is another hour your car has to operate at peak efficiency.
Increasing the punishment your car goes through are the road conditions countrywide. While cities and small towns may have good road infrastructure, the further you drive from civilisation the worse it gets. Roads may have potholes, be littered with debris, or be completely washed away due to recent storms.
With millions of people using the roads each day, a simple breakdown in your home city could become a life threatening situation.
Your car’s oil and coolant must be checked regularly. Check the oil condition and level by using the engine dipstick. Your car’s coolant levels can be checked on the reservoirs. A cold engine should have the fluids at the indicated lines. Coolant and oil keeps your engine SAFE, COLD, AND EFFICIENT.
Your washer fluid is easier to check, and will play a more visual role in your safety. Any long road trip will go through dust, rain, or worse. Having a windscreen covered in grime reduces your ability to see hazards on the road. Clean water is all you need to refill this in a pinch.
Lift the hood of your vehicle and check every hose, belt, and wire you can reach. Hoses should have no fluids on the exterior. Wires shouldn’t be exposed or loosely fitted. Belts should not squeak or make loud sounds. There are hard to reach parts of your engine that are best left to a trained mechanic to check.
Many drivers never even do a cursory check on their wires, hoses, or belts. When you’re traveling on a long road trip, any of these can cause catastrophic engine failure.
THREE filters in your car need to be replaced before you take any long road trip. The oil and fuel filters ensure that the fluids in your car are always clean. The fuel filter ensures that every drop of fuel you use is clean and safe. Oil filters increase the longevity of your oils, catching debris that may contaminate your oil.
Cabin filters are often forgotten by drivers, but on a long road trip they’re essential. You may drive behind a truck blowing diesel smoke or even drive through sand storms. Cabin filters keep the air inside the car clean and breathable, especially when you’re recycling the inside air.
Car batteries are forgotten until they fail. Every car battery has a set amount of OPERATIONAL hours. Once they start reaching their ‘end of life’, the voltage they deliver will decrease. You can check the health of your battery using a volt meter. Alternatively, you can rely on a tracking partner that has built in battery testing systems.
Cartrack units measure the voltage from your car battery, sending a low-battery alert if the voltage drops or if the battery is disconnected. If you know your battery is old or you get regular low-battery alerts from your tracking unit, it’s always best to replace it.
The most overlooked safety check you may forget to do is checking your lights. Your indicators, reverse lights, brake lights, headlights and high-beams can all fail without notice. Before departing for your trip do a check on each one. Ensure they are not too dim or broken.
If one of the lights seems weak, it’s safer to replace it. This ensures you’re safe on the road. It also avoids a possible fine when you’re pulled over.
Your brakes and wheel alignments have a big effect on the safety of your drive. Before the day of your departure, take your car to a specialist to have all of these checked. They’ll check your brake discs, pads, and brake fluid levels. Recommending a change if needed.
Getting your wheels aligned once a year is vital to increasing the longevity of your tyres. Doing so before any long road trip drastically improves the safety of your car on the road.
The easiest way to check your tyre tread depth is with a coin. Checking your tyre health is something you can do at home with a few simple tools. In South Africa using a five rand coin works best. The tread of your tyres need to reach the golden circle in the middle of the coin at the minimum.
Once the tread depth is checked, the inside of the driver-side door will have a sticker that indicates what the right pressure of your tyres are. During your wheel alignment you should ask the team to rotate your tyres as well. This means moving the rear wheels to the front, and the front to the rear.
Easy to overlook, disastrous to forget, the spare tyre is one of the most important parts in your emergency kit. Anything can happen on the road, and that includes having a tyre that looks perfect suddenly getting a puncture in the middle of nowhere.
Check your spare tyre for cracks, pressure, and overall health. Be sure that you know where it’s kept if you’re driving an unfamiliar car, and that you can fit it alone if needed.
A small crack on the windscreen of your car can quickly become a crack that spreads across your entire vision. Check your windscreen, the mirrors, rear, and side windows for any chips or cracks that may cause a problem. Replace these or have them fixed before they become a bigger issue.
Knowing how to get your car safely on the road is already a WIN. But what if you’re going for a long time? Maybe you’re camping for a few weeks out in the bush. What checks should you do for a trailer?
When doing a long road trip across South Africa your emergency kit should have the basic trauma kit and safety tools. Drivers should check that they have these before any trip they make. This is true even when driving in your home city. There are many other parts you should have in your emergency kit.
The table below lists all the items your emergency kit must have and why:
Roadside assistance when traveling across the country helps you stay safe and prepare for the worst. If you have chosen the right assistance a new battery, emergency fuel, or emergency services are all only a call away. When you are in an emergency, the right assistance you rely on already has solutions to the most common problem you may face.
These are the 4 most common problems and how to solve them:
Cartrack’s units monitor your location, keeping you and your family safe anywhere in South Africa. With advanced crash detection and geofencing you can be assured you’re safe wherever the road trip takes you. When parking in unfamiliar cities or towns, Carwatch features keep your car safe.
Our recovery teams are active nationwide and are mobilised by our 24/7 control room. Your long road trips aren’t just made easier. With us you can enjoy the open road with peace of mind, and carefree wind in your hair.
You should load your vehicle by keeping heavy items low and over the axles to balance the weight. Avoid stacking items too high so your view is clear. Secure everything so it doesn’t shift while driving. Proper loading keeps your car stable and your trip safe.
Check your suspension by looking for worn or broken springs and shocks. Test steering by turning the wheel and feeling for play or unusual noises. Listen for knocking sounds when driving over bumps. Proper suspension and steering keep your car stable and make long drives safer.
You should postpone a trip if your brakes, tyres, battery, or engine show signs of problems. Warning lights, leaks, strange noises, or cracks in glass are also red flags. Fixing these issues before you leave keeps you safe and prevents being stranded on South African roads.
Get road-trip-ready with these must-do car checks. Ensure safety, avoid breakdowns, and travel stress-free with our pre-trip checklist.
