Coronavirus: Don't neglect your car, keep it clean

One day you will need that car again, and you want it to start up when you do.

Published: Sat 18 Apr 2020, 1:40 PM

Updated: Sat 18 Apr 2020, 3:43 PM

By
Bikram Vohra

If there is one possession that has dropped from high eminence to nothing, it is the family car. In the past few weeks it has fallen into a heap of silent metal, its presence of very little consequence in our sequestered lives. To think that just a few very short weeks ago the same car was at the epicentre of our lives and a symbol of all our efforts in the workplace. And look at the affection we lavished on it. Spit and polish, clean and rub and maintain, the slightest rumble in her rhythm a defcon emergency, the car is making an odd sound. Omigoodness, that is an emergency.

And now she sits there like Caesar after the dastardly deed with none to do her reverence, unused and still being paid for in rent or monthly instalments and of no use at all.

I haven't touched my car in three weeks. Rent-a-cars are in a bind. Cabbies sit like marooned boats waiting for a tide that won't come. Call-a-cab is a joke. Limo services are defunct. Drivers are twiddling their thumbs. Petrol stations look derelict and the only muted roar you hear is that of motorbikes from the army of delivery noys.

Come the day we can pile into the car and toot off somewhere, oh what a day that would be and with that in mind take care of the old girl. Check the batteries, give her tyres a check, keep her in good nick, clean her up every now and then. One day you will need that car again...and you want her to start up when you do.