Keeping the family cars serviced, registered and insured

Two kinds of thing need tracking, and they behave differently.

Servicing is driven by time and mileage. Oil and filter changes, tyre rotation and replacement, brakes, the battery, wiper blades, air and cabin filters, and the bigger scheduled services the manufacturer lists. What matters for each is when it was last done and at what mileage.

Paperwork is driven by the calendar. Registration, a safety or emissions inspection where your state or country requires one, and the insurance renewal. What matters is the date it is due and enough warning to deal with it.

Recalls are the third, smaller job. In the US you can look up open recalls for a specific car by its VIN on the NHTSA recall site; other countries have their own lookup. A couple of times a year is enough, and after you buy a used car, once straight away.

How often a car needs each job depends on the car, the engine, the oil it uses and how it is driven. The owner's manual, or the manufacturer's maintenance schedule online, is the source. Many manuals give two schedules, a normal one and a severe one for short trips, towing, dusty roads or extreme heat or cold; plenty of family driving counts as severe, so read both. Many cars also have an oil-life monitor that works it out from how the car is actually driven.

Do not take intervals from a rule of thumb, a forum or the last mechanic's sticker. Write down the ones your manual gives, once, and keep them with the car's record so the next person does not have to look them up.

For one car and one person who looks after it, a notebook in the glovebox with the date, mileage and job for every visit is enough, plus the renewal dates in your phone calendar. A shared record starts to pay when there are two or three cars, more than one adult takes them in, or a teenager has started driving one.

Vehicle Maintenance keeps each car's record. A vehicle has a name ("Blue Subaru"), make and model, year, plate and notes. The service log records each job with its date, what was done, the odometer reading, the cost and notes, and the car's page shows the latest odometer reading and the total spent on it.

Renewals are the yearly dates: registration, inspection, insurance, or other. Each one is a month and a day, and the hub sends an email reminder on the day or 3, 7, 14 or 30 days before; fourteen is the default. The app also offers an automation that puts each renewal on Calendar on its reminder day, and a second one that takes it off again when the renewal is deleted or the car is archived. Add both.

Everyone in the household can read the record, which means a teenager who drives the second car can check when its inspection is due. Only adults add or change entries. When a car is sold, archive it: its log and renewals are hidden with it.

A renewal repeats on the same date every year. If your registration runs for two years, or the inspection is every other year, note that on the renewal so the reminder in the off year is not a surprise.

Vehicle Maintenance records what was done; it does not tell you when the next oil change is due. For that, use Home Maintenance, which is built around jobs that repeat.

Add each car as an item. Give an item a name with "car", "truck", "vehicle" or "auto" in it and it starts with two tasks, an oil change and a tyre rotation. Change their intervals to what your manual says, and add the other jobs from its schedule. Each task shows when it is due or how long it is overdue, and logging it done restarts the clock and keeps a history. Home Maintenance is for adults; children do not see it.

Its intervals are in days, not miles. If your manual gives a mileage, work out roughly how long that takes at the way your family drives, and round down. Keep the odometer readings in Vehicle Maintenance's log, and compare the two now and then.

Tyres, batteries and some repairs come with a warranty, and the claim is only worth anything with the receipt and the purchase date. Warranty Vault records each purchase with the date, price, retailer, warranty length and serial number, and a photo of the receipt. It lists the warranties that end soonest, and offers an automation that puts the last day of each on Calendar.

Put an extended warranty or a service plan there too, with its terms in the notes. The question "is this covered?" comes up at the garage counter, and the answer should be on your phone.

Shared records do not take the car to the garage. Name one adult per car as the person who books its services and deals with its renewals. The other drivers' job is smaller and just as important: say when a warning light comes on or a tyre looks low, and log anything they had done.

Keep the documents the law asks for in the car itself, such as the registration and proof of insurance where your state or country requires them, and check them when the renewal comes round. And when a teenager starts driving one of the cars, show them the record. Knowing what the car needs, and what it costs, is part of learning to drive it.

One record per car with every job, mileage and bill in it, which is also the service history a buyer asks for. Renewals that arrive as a reminder a fortnight early rather than as a fine. Intervals taken from the manual and written down once. And a household where looking after the cars does not depend on one person's memory.

• Vehicle Maintenance
• Maintenance
• Warranty Vault
• Calendar

Every app in the library is included with the household plan. Install the ones this guide uses and skip the rest.

• How the private household hub works
• Knowing what the household owns, and letting the rest of it go
• Pets, plants, and everything else that needs doing on a schedule
• From learner's permit to first car: a practice log, then drive reports