Although I have been driving my own car for the last 3+ years, I have always been clueless about what I need to do to maintain my car to make sure that it can continue to operate properly. I always thought that if I just simply go for servicing religiously at the pre-determined intervals I would be free of any problems with the car.

However, the truth is that, as will all machines, after some time wear and tear will set in. The same goes for my car which has passed its 3-year-mark. Some months ago, it was the battery that went flat, and more recently (last Saturday), it was a flat tyre.

In a way, I guess it is a blessing in disguised that I had a flat tyre, because when I went to the Shell servicing centre near my place (ok, I know I waited for almost 4 full days before I did anything about this, but I am a procrastinator. :P ), I was told that the set of tyres I have are quite worn out. The guy at the garage told me honestly that the tyres are not totally worn out, but because I did not rotate the tyres (and I assumed that my regular services at Nissan would take care of that), some parts are not as good as before. He also pointed out that certain parts of the tyres have some sort of split lines, which could possibly be due to me hitting curbs. True enough I had made that mistake of hitting curbs a number of times, and thought nothing of it.

I took his advice to change all four of my tyres, since it has been about 2 years since I last changed them. I don't know the market rate, but they charged me $345 for four Bridgestone tyres (made in Japan, but do I know the difference?). In any case, I left as a satisfied customer with my problem solved. ;)