All this sheltering-in-place has one bright side – most of us are not spending as much on transportation costs. In other words, you’re probably not driving your car, truck, or SUV too often or too far from McHenry. In the process, you’re making fewer stops at the gas stations.

Less driving also means less wear and tear and your car, truck, or SUV. Ah, but don’t assume you can just wait until everything’s opened back up again before considering the maintenance requirements of your vehicle. This isn’t a blanket excuse for ignoring regular maintenance. There are still aspects of maintaining your vehicle that you’ll want to keep in mind.

Chief among the concerns for maintaining your car, truck, or SUV is regular oil changes. Changing the oil is probably the single most important thing you can do to ensure the longevity, value, and performance of your vehicle. Oil is the lifeblood of your engine and you want good blood to reduce the effects of friction and heat on the internal components of your engine.

For each car, truck, or SUV, you’ll find the recommended schedule for oil changes in the owner’s manual. Refer to this to see the requirements for your vehicle.

In days gone by, 3,000 miles or 3 months was generally the rule for oil changes. But oil producers have improved the additives in oil. They’ve also developed quality synthetic oils. In both cases, motor oil generally has the capacity to go longer between oil changes. But you’ll probably find that the owner’s manual suggests something along the line of 7,500 miles or 6 months, whichever comes first, for the duration between oil changes.

This means that, though you’re probably not putting as many miles on your car, truck, or SUV during the lockdown, time is still passing. That 6-month period may be drawing near even though you haven’t hit the road in or around McHenry much.

You could probably stretch the interval – change the oil after 7 months. But why would you want to do that? Considering that oil changes are relatively inexpensive and that the benefits of regular oil changes are significant, there’s really no good reason not to change the oil on schedule.

And if you’re worried about getting out of the house to bring the car, truck, or SUV to an auto repair shop in the McHenry area, several of the better auto repair shops provide sanitary pick-up and drop-off services. You don’t even need to leave the house though, by this point, any reason to get out is probably welcome.