You could be one of them. And there comes a time when your car needs to go in for an oil change and other maintenance work to ensure it's roadworthy.
Rest assured that a vehicle's engine is far more resilient than what you might think.
At present, your vehicle manufacturer should have already announced that all warranties during the MCO are maintained, which comes with or without any limitations to mileage travelled.
If in doubt, contact your service adviser as soon as possible for further clarification.
As it's widely known, engine oil is like the "life-blood" of a vehicle, so what does it mean when it's time for a recommended service?
The goal of your vehicle's manufacturer is to help keep your car running properly throughout its ownership cycle, which is why they have a service interval of every 5,000, 10,000 or 15,000km).
Delaying a scheduled service isn't as bad as one might think - up to a point.
Owners should first perform a visual inspection of the oil and its colour to determine how severe the vehicle is in need of a service.
The engine's dip-stick will be where you can inspect the engine oil level and colour.
First, have a paper towel (preferably white) on hand and with the engine switched off, pop the hood open, locate the dip-stick and pull it out.
Wipe off any existing engine oil at its tip, re-insert it back into the engine and pull it out again to note the oil level and colour.
Also, take this opportunity to top-up with additional oil if it's low with the manufacturer's recommended lubricant and nothing else.
When new, engine oils look gold in colour and through usage over time, it becomes darker - much like dark chocolate.
After all that's been said, it doesn't mean that drivers can hit the road running at full throttle with caution thrown into the wind.
Spent oil will not be able to deliver its full lubricity very well to inhibit excess heat from building up as metal components rub against each other - thereby putting added stress on the cooling system.
Left unchecked, metal particles due to friction can form, clogging up the oil filter and slowly begin to starve the engine's components of oil, creating more friction and more metal particles - a sort of snowball effect.
What needs to be done right now is to be mechanically sympathetic to your engine's current predicament and that means not revving past 3,000rpm and making sure to be gentle with the throttle when moving off from a standstill.
Not to mention, avoid excessively speeding around regardless of whether there's an inherent lack of traffic due to the MCO.
One major indicator that the engine needs an oil change is that fuel economy seems to have taken a hit.
When engine oils pass their usage, they slowly become thicker than they were originally created and that means engine components need to exert effort to work "through" them rather than "with" them.
A good way to monitor this is to take note of how many kilometres your vehicle is able to cover, so resetting the trip counter should always be done after refuelling.
In extreme cases, severely overused engine oils are generally as black as a fresh cup of Americano and won't offer the engine much, if not any lubricity from when it was new and shouldn't really be driven anywhere but only to the service centre.
Another form of inspection is turning on the car and letting it idle for the next 20 minutes, after which rev the engine up to 3,000rpm.
If there's some screeching that's accompanied by white smoke and burnt smell, chances are, it is very likely that metal components are coming into direct contact with each other.
So once the opportunity presents itself, immediately reschedule your service.
Till then, stay safe and more importantly stay home!
READ MORE: Inspecting and starting your vehicle during MCO
