18.3 Daily and Weekly Checks

18.3 Daily and Weekly Checks

Quick Answer: Daily (every journey): tyres including the spare, lights, horn, mirrors, fuel, obvious leaks, and wipers, plus the Code's before-driving list. Weekly: engine oil, coolant, battery, brake fluid, and transmission fluid as applicable, together with the electrical system.

Subject 9 of the GPF Theoretical Programme is daily and weekly checks of transmission and electrical systems. Pair it with Rule 68 of the Guyana Road Traffic Code ("Before driving") and with defensive driving's vehicle condition. This OpenExamPrep section is independent study of those sources. It is not a GPF form and not a full service schedule from a franchise workshop. The exam wants you to know what to look at, how often, and what to do if it is wrong before you join left-hand traffic.

Before every journey: daily checks and Rule 68

A "daily" check in learner language means each time you take the vehicle out, even for a short Georgetown errand. Defects appear overnight: a nail in a tyre, a lamp that died, a leak that emptied a reservoir in the yard.

Walk around. Guyana traffic keeps left; most cars are right-hand drive. Start at the driver's door (right-hand side of the car), then the front, the near side (left, toward the kerb when you are parked with the flow), the rear, and the off-side. Look at the ground for fresh drips before you even open the door.

Tyres, including the spare. Rule 68: tyres in a safe condition and at proper pressure. Look for cuts, bulges, cords showing, and a tyre that sits low. Include the spare: a space-saver that is itself flat is not a plan for the Soesdyke–Linden Highway. The GPF package does not publish a millimetre tread figure for you to memorise from another country's code; the testable idea is safe condition and proper pressure, not a number invented for the paper.

Lights. Headlamps, rear lamps, brake lamps, indicators, and the plate lamp as fitted. The Code publishes lighting hours: from 1 February to 30 September, 6.15 p.m. to 5.30 a.m.; from 1 October to 31 January, 5.45 p.m. to 5.30 a.m. Unlit travel in those hours on an unlit stretch is both a Rule 68 failure and a collision waiting for the next overtaking vehicle. Rule 68 also wants the speedometer, horn and lights in working order before you drive.

Horn. It is a warning appliance, not a greeting. It must work when you need to warn a pedestrian stepping from behind a minibus in Georgetown. A silent horn fails the daily list even if the engine is healthy.

Mirrors. The programme calls the mirror your third eye. An interior mirror alone leaves blind spots; an exterior mirror on the rear side is how you cover them. Daily: are they present, tight, and aimed so you can actually see before you pull out, change course or speed, or get out? Glancing in a cracked, dangling glass is not a check.

Fuel. Running dry on Canje Bridge, in a harbour-bridge queue, or on an interior laterite stretch where the next pump is hours away is a control failure. Read the gauge before you go. Fuel on the ground is a leak and a fire risk — do not start.

Obvious leaks. Oil, coolant, fuel, or brake fluid under the car. Brake fluid on the ground: do not drive. That is a failing brake waiting to happen, and 18.2 already quoted the Code: stop and get failing brakes attended.

Wipers and a clean windscreen. Rule 68: windscreen clean, wiper in working order. Tropical rain on the East Coast turns a streaky blade into a blind driver. Defensive-driving notes in the package also treat lights on as good practice when the weather already demands wipers, and they remind you to use low beams in rain and fog because high beams reflect.

Rule 68 adds paperwork and other hardware you must not skip because you were busy with the dipstick: licence and insurance covering your use of the vehicle; driver's licence valid and signed in ink in the space provided; brakes and steering gear working efficiently; the vehicle in such a condition that no danger is likely to yourself or others; silencer efficient and the vehicle not otherwise excessively noisy; load not excessive or so badly packed, distributed, or secured as to be dangerous to the public. Those items sit beside the mechanical list. A perfect oil level does not excuse an unsigned licence or a mattress on the roof with no lashings.

Weekly: oil, coolant, battery, brake fluid, transmission

Weekly checks catch levels and systems that fall slowly between journeys.

Engine oil — dipstick, correct grade, between the marks (18.1). Do it on level ground with the engine off. A rising consumption or a milky residue on the cap is not a "top up forever" story; that is workshop diagnosis and a reason to postpone a Linden run.

Coolant — expansion tank between MIN and MAX when cold. Never pour cold water onto a boiling engine, and never twist off a pressurised cap on a hot radiator. A falling level without a visible leak can mean an internal fault. That is not a learner top-up trick; it is a reason not to start.

Battery — humid salt air around Georgetown and the coast eats terminals. Weekly: tightness, corrosion (white or green crust), and that the car starts crisply. Many batteries are sealed; if yours has removable caps, electrolyte should cover the plates — do not overfill. A battery that dies also kills lights, horn, wipers, and often the fuel pump. That is why Subject 9 names electrical systems in the same breath as these checks.

Brake fluid — reservoir under the bonnet. A dropping level can mean worn pads (fluid moves into the calipers) or a leak. A leak is a Code-level emergency. For the exam: know that the reservoir has a level, that low fluid with a soft pedal is not a "top up and ignore" fault, and that brake fluid is not engine oil and not coolant.

Transmission, as applicable. Manual gearboxes and axles often have fillers checked at service, not every week by a learner — but if the vehicle has a transmission dipstick (many automatics), check it the way the handbook says (often idling, in park, level ground). A burnt smell, slipping gears, or a red transmission warning is a do not continue on the highway. Clutch drag or a gearbox that jumps out of gear is a daily feel check: do not wait for Friday if it happened on Monday's school run.

Electrical systems are safety kit, not extras

Electricity runs the equipment the Code and the programme treat as before-driving items:

• Lighting for the Code's lighting hours and for rain and fog (low beams in fog; high beams dazzle and reflect)
• Horn
• Wipers and washers
• Indicators and hazard flashers (the signals Chapter 10 taught)
• Brake lamps
• Charging (alternator or generator): a battery warning lamp while driving means the car is running on borrowed charge
• Starting

A blown fuse can kill a cluster of lamps. After any electrical repair, re-check the daily lamp list before you join left-hand traffic. Loose earth straps and corroded battery clamps are common in the wet season; they mimic a "dead battery." Do not leave the headlamps on in a yard and flatten the battery before a dawn start. Do not drive with only one headlamp on the Linden Highway because "it is not far." Unlighted vehicles attract enforcement as well as collisions.

Fitness, inspection, and refusing to go

Guyana's certificate of fitness law (Cap. 51:02 ss.14–15) and the programme's defensive-driving notes both put responsibility on the driver: regularly check all parts; if you cannot, have a knowledgeable person check. Inspection laws exist; they do not replace the walk-round you do this morning. The theoretical examination's stated aim is that you put principles into practice. Skipping the walk-round because you are late for a sitting connected with Traffic Headquarters at Eve Leary is how a soft tyre becomes a crash on the East Bank.

If daily or weekly checks fail: repair or postpone. That is the same logic as failing brakes: stop and attend. A candidate who can describe a chassis but then drives with no spare, no horn, and a weeping brake pipe has not understood Subjects 7–9. The vehicle condition is one of the two conditions you actually control. Use that control before you move off, not after the temperature lamp or the spongy pedal has already joined the traffic stream.