Every day, thousands of drivers across Melbourne and regional Victoria unintentionally shorten the life of their cars without even realising it. A quick rev here, a lazy hand there, or simply leaving an old car to rot — these small habits add up to thousands of dollars in preventable repairs, higher fuel bills, and lost resale value.
The worst part? Most people never connect the dots between their daily driving style and the big mechanical failures that appear years later. This guide reveals the five most common (and most damaging) habits Australian drivers have, explains exactly why they’re so destructive, and gives you clear, practical steps to break them today.
1. Resting Your Hand on the Gear Stick
It’s one of the most common sights on Victorian roads: drivers cruising along the Monash, Eastern, or Tullamarine Freeways with their right hand permanently parked on the gear stick.
What feels like a comfortable resting spot is actually applying constant light pressure to the gearbox internals. The selector fork, synchroniser rings, and bearings are forced to carry unnecessary load every second your hand is there. Over months and years, this causes premature wear that dramatically shortens transmission life.
Experienced Melbourne mechanics report that regular “gear-stick resters” often need complete manual gearbox rebuilds or replacements 30,000–50,000 km earlier than drivers who keep both hands on the wheel. That single lazy habit can easily cost $3,000–$7,000 when the bill arrives.
How to break it instantly: Make a conscious rule — the gear stick is only touched when actively changing gear. Rest your hand on your leg or keep both at 9-and-3 if you want extra control.
2. Riding the Clutch in Heavy Traffic
Melbourne’s peak-hour gridlock on Hoddle Street, King Street, or the West Gate Bridge turns many drivers into clutch-riders. Instead of coming to a complete stop and selecting neutral, they keep the clutch partially engaged while creeping forward centimetre by centimetre.
This keeps the clutch plate slipping against the flywheel the entire time, generating intense heat and wearing the friction material at an alarming rate. A clutch designed to last 120,000–160,000 km in normal conditions can be completely cooked by 60,000–80,000 km with this habit.
Replacement isn’t cheap — expect to pay $1,500–$3,500 depending on the vehicle. Many Melbourne workshops say clutch failure is now the number-one preventable repair they see in city-driven cars.
The fix is simple and instant: Every time you stop for more than a couple of seconds (lights, traffic, trams), push the clutch all the way in, shift to neutral, and take your foot completely off the pedal. Your left leg and your bank account will thank you.
3. Ignoring Potholes and Rough Roads
Victorian roads took a beating over the last few wet seasons, and local councils can’t fill potholes fast enough. Hitting them at full speed might not bend a rim today, but the repeated shocks silently destroy everything underneath.
Suspension bushes, shock absorbers, ball joints, wheel bearings, and even subframes take cumulative damage with every impact. Add knocked wheel alignment and you get rapid, uneven tyre wear that costs hundreds to fix every couple of years.
The RACV consistently ranks suspension and steering damage in the top five mechanical issues across Victoria. One particularly bad pothole can misalign your wheels enough to wear out a set of tyres in under 15,000 km instead of the usual 50,000–70,000 km.
Practical steps to protect your car:
Slow down as soon as you spot broken surfaces ahead
If a pothole is unavoidable, release the brake just before impact so the wheels can rotate and the suspension absorbs the energy
Have wheel alignment checked annually or after any big hit
4. Aggressive Acceleration and Hard Braking
Launching hard off every set of traffic lights and braking late might feel sporty, but every full-throttle start places enormous stress on the engine, gearbox, clutch, driveshafts, CV joints, and tyres.
Engines wear faster under sudden high load, automatic transmissions overheat, and manual clutches slip and glaze, and tyres scrub rubber with every burnout-style launch. VicRoads research shows aggressive driving increases fuel use by up to 33% in urban conditions and dramatically raises the risk of turbo, timing-chain, and differential failures.
On top of the mechanical cost, you’re throwing away hundreds of dollars in extra petrol every year for zero real benefit.
How to drive instead: Treat the accelerator like an egg under your foot for the first few seconds. Smooth, progressive throttle keeps everything cooler, cleaner, and lasting longer. You’ll also notice passengers stop bracing themselves every time the lights change.
5. Letting an Unwanted or Damaged Car Sit and Rot
This final habit doesn’t happen behind the wheel, but it costs Victorian drivers more money than almost any other mistake. When a car becomes unroadworthy, unregistered, or simply unwanted, too many people push it to the back corner of the driveway and forget about it.
Within weeks, surface rust appears. Within months, tyres perish and flat-spot, brake rotors seize, and battery acid leaks. Within a year or two, rodents chew wiring harnesses and the car is worth literally nothing.
Yet most Melbourne suburbs are full of these slow-motion money bonfires. The average written-off or unused car still has $300–$2,500 of instant value if removed quickly.
Professional unwanted car removal services now pay cash on the spot and collect for free the same or next day, even if the car hasn’t run in years. Drivers who act fast turn a liability into immediate money rather than watching value disappear week after week.
Melbourne Cash For Carz has built a strong local reputation by offering genuine same-day cash for cars inner Melbourne and every surrounding suburb, accepting vehicles in absolutely any condition, and completing all VicRoads paperwork on site. Thousands of Victorian families have pocketed hundreds (often thousands) of dollars within 24 hours instead of letting their old car become worthless junk.
The Real Cost of Doing Nothing
Small habits feel harmless in the moment, but over the life of a car they easily add $10,000–$20,000 in extra repairs, fuel, tyres, and lost resale value. The moment you decide to drive gently and act quickly when a car is no longer needed, that money stays in your pocket.
Start with one change today — take your hand off the gear stick, go to neutral in traffic, or finally book that old car in for removal — and you’ll feel the difference in months.
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