The factory maintenance schedule assumes pavement. If half your kilometres are on grid roads, your vehicle is living a harder life than the book expects, and a few things wear out early in a predictable order.
Suspension takes the first hit
Washboard is thousands of small, sharp impacts a minute. Shocks heat up and fade; sway-bar links, ball joints and tie rod ends loosen; bushings crack. The symptoms creep in: a rattle over the approach, a steering wheel that feels a little vague, a tire wearing on the inside edge. Have the suspension checked once a year with the wheels off the ground. Caught early, it's a link or a shock. Caught late, it's a control arm and a set of tires.
Dust gets everywhere
Engine air filters on gravel vehicles can be black in a third of the recommended interval. Check it at every oil change and hold it up to the light. Cabin filters clog too, which is why the heater fan seems weaker every winter. Wheel bearings and brake components pick up grit that accelerates wear; a brake inspection at each tire swap catches it.
Stone chips and rust
Chips in the paint along the rocker panels and behind the wheels turn into rust in a couple of winters once the salt gets in. Touch them up in the fall. Steel brake lines and fuel lines corrode from the outside, and out here they're often the first hard-part failure on a ten-year-old truck. We check them at every brake job.
Windshields and lights
Not much to be done about the windshield except keeping a distance from the vehicle ahead. Headlight lenses fog from sandblasting; a polish restores most of them for a fraction of a replacement.
A gravel maintenance schedule
- Oil and filter: every 8,000 km or six months rather than the 12,000 the monitor suggests, especially for towing
- Air filter: inspect every oil change, replace when you can't see light through it
- Suspension and steering check: annually, or at the first new noise
- Brake inspection: at each seasonal tire swap
- Underbody rinse: after the last salt in spring
Tell us where you drive and we'll set your reminders to match it, not the book.
