I’ve owned my car for about 8 months now, and I’m starting to get the hang of taking care of it. Before owning a car, I didn’t realize how much work or money went into maintaining one. I always thought of a car as primarily a large, one-time payment with annual or semi-annual lumps of money paid for insurance and such. Hoo boy, I was wrong. Gas, car cleaning, and oil changes are just some of the things that I didn’t really think about. In order to keep my car topped up on gas, I have to visit the station nearby roughly once a week. I imagine this wouldn’t be true for people who drive less often, but I drive three to five times a week nowadays. Still, keeping my gas tank full is a pretty simple and easy task when compared to car cleaning. Because of how busy I have been with work, it has been rather difficult to find time to go and get it cleaned. Since the station regularly has people scheduling for car checkups or their own cleanings, I have to make an appointment at least a few days in advance. But I haven’t had time available, or I’ve had work emergencies happen that have stopped me from cleaning it several times before.

The concept of needing to schedule around my car maintenance never crossed my mind. Cleanings take about two hours. Other maintenance work and checkups can take anywhere between thirty minutes to most of a day. One such example came after I just bought my car. It’s a used car, so when I took it in to get checked, I was informed that the brakes and tires were too old and needed replacement, along with several other borderline problems. It took several days of going back and forth to get a schedule for when I could have my car taken car of, as they predicted it would take anywhere between one to three days of work to fix everything. All told, this was going to be upwards of 60,000 yen (~600 USD). I would never have imagined needing to open space in my schedule to drive my car in, sit for half an hour while my car got checked, then figure out a schedule, go back in, deliver my car, and then wait an entire day to get it back. Let alone needing to pay that much so soon after buying it for repairs. For people who have been driving a while, I’m sure this is all just standard stuff to you. For me, it was quite a shock and sort of mind blowing. Cars require a lot of active care to make sure they last a while. And I’m hoping to keep mine for several years. Let this be a reminder to myself and everyone else: look into everything so you know what you’re getting into!