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Last week I had an unfortunate breakdown in my car, due to me stupidly putting as small amount of petrol (£12 worth) into my diesel car (on an empty tank).  Now, I’ve had my car for 5 years and only had this problem since driving my partner’s petrol engined car for 2 weeks while on holiday recently.

I had to wait for 3 hrs for the AA to come and help me – I had done the same thing about 1 month ago too, so I was rather annoyed with myself when my car ground to a halt less than a mile from the petrol station. I was well armed though when I spoke to the AA – they wanted to charge me £200 to drain my fuel tank, but I declined. From my previous experience, and the advice from the previous AA man, I knew that I could restart the car once I had filled up the tank completely with diesel. Yes the engine smoked a bit and it would be a bit ropey to start the engine for a few weeks, but it would be cheaper than paying £200 to the AA or a garage to drain the tank.

So my learnings from this episode are:

- don’t put petrol in a diesel engine!

- the AA are now very keen to sell you something you may not need. Of course the AA told me I could damage my engine by going ahead and putting diesel in and not having it drained. (But I know that any damage would already have been done by putting the petrol in, in the first place. I signed a waiver to say I understood this.)

After having to wait for 3 hrs for the AA due to huge national demand due to the sub-zero temperatures and current icy/snowing conditions, it made me think of other things I need to do with my car:

- service & MOT

- new set of tires

So here are some tips on how to save money on both of these:

Cheaper Servicing & MOT

If you have a relatively new car, you may automatically assume you need to go to your local branded dealership (Ford dealer, Vauxhall dealer, Audi dealer etc) as you my invalidate your warranty otherwise. This is myth which the branded dealerships are keen to continue to promote. This is certainly not true.

As long as you use genuine branded parts made by your car manufacturer, your warrant will still be valid.  So as long as you find a reputable car service station that uses genuine parts, you can get an equally good but vastly cheaper car service.

For example, my very first service on my Audi A3 diesel, was a simple job of changing the oil filter and putting new oil in. Even the guy who returned my newly valeted car from the service bay, was embarrassed when I looked at the detailed invoice – £320 + VAT for very little servicing. Most of that was labour and Audi oil, which ran out some 6 weeks later.

So to make significant savings on your car service, find a good local service station where they will use branded parts (emphasise that they must use branded parts when you book the service) and ask how much they charge for such items as oil.

Alternatively, if you still want to go to your local dealer, especially if you drive a more upmarket brand like Audi, Mercedes, BMW etc make sure you tell them you will provide all the servicing liquids like oil, screenwash, anti-freeze and leave that in the car when you take it for a service. I know a guy who does this with his Porsche!