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With fewer daylight hours in the fall and winter, it’s important to make sure your vehicle can be seen by others and your visibility is not compromised. Fall Car Care Month in October is also National Headlight Safety Month, the perfect time for a safety inspection of your vehicle’s lights and wipers, according to the Car Care Council. “As the days get shorter, your vehicle’s lighting system becomes more important to the safety of you and your passengers,” said Rich White, executive director, Car Care Council.

Properly balanced wheels have long been recognized as helping provide improved ride quality, better gas mileage and reduced tire wear, making wheel balancing an important part of car care and maintenance.

For decades wheel weights have largely consisted of chunks of lead clamped to the wheel rim. Lead has traditionally been used to make wheel weights because it is cheap and heavy, allowing the use of relatively small weights to balance wheels. However, the highly toxic metal can cause brain damage and other nervous-system disorders in people.

One important point about antifreeze: there are now many different formulations available for use in different vehicles, and even in specific applications. It’s not just “the green stuff” any more, there’s red, orange, yellow, blue, etc. But don’t think this means that you can just go by color, even though color can be indicative of a certain type of antifreeze, those of the same or similar color can be formulated substantially differently. For the most part, different types of antifreeze should not be mixed, and also, in many cases, one type cannot be substituted for another.

Being green doesn’t have to mean you have to spend a lot of green.  According to the Car Care Council, by properly maintaining your vehicle’s fuel system, you will not only improve the performance of your vehicle, but lower its emissions and save money at the pump, too.