I mainly use my car for short journeys - to and from work (1.5 miles away), it's too far and too late at night to be safe to walk. But I'm sure all the short journeys aren't doing my car any good, is there anything I can do to combat this?

I do try and take it for a longer stretch at least once a week, but even then it's not usually too far 3-4 miles at best, long haul journeys I'd do about every couple months or so.

I am keeping the car well serviced if this makes any difference, but my mileage for the year so far (ends April) is in at just over 4200 miles...

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Is stop start still working?

I haven't got stop start on my current car, it's going to be on the new one though

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Battery is biggest concern really. Stop start still working is a good indication the battery is still charged.

Otherwise I imagine the exhaust could be a problem as it will never get dried out.

I do a short commute too, but keep taking the car out at weekends, good fun to anyway.

Not much you can do really apart from taking it out to stretch its legs, or keeping it in the lower gears with more revs so it generates more heat, but on a 1.5 mile journey it wouldn't make much difference apart from maybe increase your fuel consumption.

hi,, i had a petrol engined 1.4L C4 on a 55 plate from new,,, when i flogged it there was only 14k miles on the clock, it was the wifes shop bus and occationally my get to work car which is about 2 miles away.

In the last year of having it the car only had 12k miles on it, and i ran up the other 2k miles while i was choosing a new car for myself, but i had it serviced every year and never had any problems, we were only going to keep the car for 10 years or so and i was not worried about any longterm issues developing through its lack of milage and its short trips.

The only reason i had to change 2 tyres on the drivers side (front and rear) was because it got a lot of sun on that side on my drive and the tyres cracked. :D

We decided to sell after only 7 years with 14k on the clock and the car ran perfectly as nothing had really had time to ware out as the milage was so low.

So if your not planning on keeping the car say over 7ish years and your only doing short trips then its more than likley you should not have issues before you sell it on.

But i do agree with taking it for a good run out every now and then so to speak.

In contrast i now have a 1.6 diesel and make sure it gets a good 30-40 mile trip with the rev counter at over 2000 revs down the motorway or on the B roads to the coast with the wife.