Car check

I don't want any (ahem, Canadian) readers to bust a gut laughing, but I did my first under-the-hood car maintenance check on Saturday morning. At my monthly church women's meeting an older guy came and showed us exactly how to do these checks and gave us a list of what to look for and how to do it.

So here is what I checked and the result:

Tires--had to add air to all four, luckily we have an air compressor so it was easy.
Shocks--oops, I guess I forgot this one. I'm not going to do anything about them anyway, so I guess that's okay.
Wipers--replaced the rear wiper blade.
Windshield wiper fluid--added more than a gallon of water with about 3 drops of dish detergent (see picture below). We don't worry about it freezing in the tank.
Brakes--no grinding noise
Brake fluid--proper fluid level
Radiator--proper fluid level
Engine oil--proper level but dirty. I need to take it to a low-end place that only changes the oil since I don't need anything else they do (thanks to this little check).
Transmission--proper fluid level
Power steering--proper fluid level
Air filter--almost clean as it was replaced last winter
Hoses and belts--not mushy, not hard, the belts look pristine
Battery--added a surprising amount of water, cleaned off the contacts with baking soda and water.

I felt really accomplished after the hour or so I spent doing these things. Dh did his car at the same time and he had only one tire to inflate, needed the gallon or so in both his battery and windshield wiper tank, had a dirty air filter and needed all three wiper blades so we replaced those. I think we're supposed to do this every month.