Breakdown services have their busiest weeks of the year during the summer holidays — hot weather, heavy loads and long motorway runs find every weakness a car has been hiding. The frustrating part? Most of those breakdowns are preventable with fifteen minutes of checks the day before you leave.

First: Is the Paperwork Actually Valid?

Before anything mechanical, spend thirty seconds confirming the basics. An expired MOT invalidates many insurance policies — a grim discovery to make after a motorway prang 200 miles from home. Check your MOT expiry and tax status below; if the MOT runs out while you're away, get it done before you go (you can test up to a month early and keep your renewal date).

The 15-Minute Physical Checklist

Tyres (5 minutes — the most important)

• Tread: 1.6mm is the legal minimum, but braking distances grow sharply below 3mm. Use a 20p coin — if you can see the coin's outer band, act
• Pressures: check them cold, then add the "full load" figures from the sticker in your door shut or fuel flap — a loaded car needs several PSI more
• The spare (or the sealant kit): flat spares help nobody, and sealant kits have expiry dates. Check now, not on the hard shoulder
• Sidewalls: bulges or cracks mean the tyre fails at speed in heat. Replace before you travel

Fluids (5 minutes)

• Coolant: between MIN and MAX when cold. Summer traffic jams are where marginal cooling systems die. If you've been topping up regularly, get the leak found first
• Oil: check with the dipstick on level ground. Long fast runs on low oil are how engines end their lives
• Screenwash: motorways in summer mean bugs. You'll use more than you think
• Brake fluid: if it's below MIN, that's a garage visit — brake fluid doesn't get "used up", it escapes

The Rest (5 minutes)

• All lights — walk round with a helper, or use reflections in a window
• Air con — if it's blowing warm, a re-gas (£50–£100) transforms a summer trip. Weak air con also works the engine harder
• Wipers — summer storms are heavy; smearing blades are £10–£20
• Battery — sluggish cranking? Heat kills weak batteries as effectively as cold. Get it tested free at most motor factors

Let the Car's History Do the Worrying

Your car has been telling you what's likely to fail — through its MOT advisories. "Brake pads wearing thin", "tyre close to legal limit", "slight play in suspension component" — advisories are exactly the marginal items that a fully-loaded car on a hot motorway turns into failures. Run your reg through DriveSage and the AI will flag which past advisories are still likely to be outstanding, so you can deal with them before the M5 does.

Loading and Driving

• Heaviest items low and forward in the boot; nothing loose on the parcel shelf — a 2kg object becomes a projectile in a hard stop
• Don't exceed the car's max load — it's on the same door-shut sticker as the tyre pressures. Five adults, luggage and a roof box gets close faster than you'd think
• Roof boxes: knock 10–15% off your fuel economy expectations and keep speed sensible — handling changes with weight up high
• Plan charging stops if you're in an EV — summer holiday routes mean charger queues at peak times. Mid-journey top-ups to 80% beat queueing for a full charge

Driving to Europe?

• UK identifier (UK sticker or UK-marked plates) required
• Headlamp beam deflectors for driving on the right
• Many countries require a warning triangle and hi-vis vests in the cabin, not the boot
• Check your insurance covers EU driving at full comprehensive level, not the legal-minimum fallback