Well to be blunt. My neon feels like ****..

Suspensions shot, brakes needed replaced, but the big thing is, I took her on a 100+ mile trip last night, where me and my girlfriend ended up in a rural town messing around on the streets stocking out some people we knew. By the time we were reading to leave, we wasted about 2 hours in the town.. Somewhat hard driving took place, nothing crazy though. But my car smelled hot. The temperature gage was only halfway in the middle, which is pretty much where it ALWAYS goes.

Recently it has been vibrating off and on, and really not running all that well.

My question is.. is there some maintenance that I should be doing to try to prolong my cars life? She turned over 79,000 last night..

 

The basics of automobile maintenance: Spark plug change, oil and oil filter change, airfilter change, brake pads and rotors changed, radiator flushed and filled. Obviously if you know your springs and struts are shot, replace them as well.

 

Curious how your car smelled hot? lol, just sounds a bit strange. Driving around aimlessly in town will tend to put extra strain on the engine for starters, which will make it run warmer than normal. The factory gauge is all show, until your car overheats at which point if the fountain of steam doesn't signal that the car is too hot, the gauge will actually move to the top. Also, are you talking preventative maintenance? Like changing the oil and air filter?

 

The hot smell was coming from the heater. It was cold, probably 25degrees. It was a mix between heater smell and burning oil to be honest. Although, i couldn't have been burning oil.