To not spend hours doing car admin?

[CactusUmbrella]

Whenever a thread pops up about chores in the house/tasks to be divided, I always see an exasperated “I do all of the car admin/car insurance!”.

I’ve owned several cars in my time - AIBU to think this isn’t a daily, or even weekly task?

I can’t think of one thing I’ve done for my car in the last month! What am I missing?

It sounds unlikely to be a daily or monthly thing, but even a handful of annual things spread through the year can add up. Thinking about it now, I probably spend a few hours comparing/haggling/buying car insurance a year, an hour or so doing the same for breakdown, I organise the services (phoning round and comparing prices and availability, organising a rental car or other logistics of that day), MOTs, repairs, sometimes having to take time off for them, similar comparing prices and availability and researching the options when it needs tyres, getting tax is quick but it's still another job on the to do list, and currently I'm in the thick of changing car and have spent many, many hours across weeks or actually months researching cars, comparing prices, doing all the financial admin of buying one, getting new insurance etc for that one, getting the existing car ready for sale, getting quotes from dealers and online marketplaces for that, cancelling that insurance...it kind of adds up! I haven't really thought of 'car admin' being one of my many tasks of its own merit, but actually it is and it's probably taken up more than 40 hours of my time in the last couple of months alone!

Car admin isn't a thing. People just like to be martyrs. I spend about 20 minutes every year getting insurance quotes, about 3 minutes booking an MOT and the same booking a service. Tax just renews automatically but if I change my car I'll spend about 5 minutes filling in a form online, and it'll just renew automatically therein.

I suppose I spend a few minutes each week checking my tyres and oil.

It can be time consuming, I’ve had to contest two fines in the past month and also need to get round to fixing a broken wing mirror that I haven’t had time
to do

How do you renew tax automatically? I always have to wait for the code on the letter or I can't do it on the gov website, unless I've missed a trick.

Direct debit. I've not done anything about mine for years, it just renews automatically every year and I get an email about it.

I probably spend a few hours comparing/haggling/buying car insurance a year

It takes 20 minutes on comparethemarket - done.

doing the same for breakdown

Get breakdown with the above, takes no time at all.

I organise the services (phoning round and comparing prices and availability, organising a rental car or other logistics of that day), MOTs, repairs

Why the hell wouldn't you just find one trusted garage and use that. I use the same garage every time, and they collect and return my car for services and MOTs. Takes all of 5 mins on the phone to book in.

You're making an entire range of mountains out of a molehill.

It's a direct debit. You don't need to do anything, it just continues at the new rate.

I have two cars and do all my "admin", it really isn't a burden to arrange insurance, tax and servicing. However is it more the fact people feel expected to do it and added to the range of other things they are likely managing, it gets too much.

Owning a car isn’t as complex as this for the majority of people.

I do direct debit for tax and insurance.
I am with Tesco which always comes up cheapest for me when I compare once a year so I stick with them as they have been very reliable to date in providing the service and I also have breakdown cover with them.

MOT is booked in 2 weeks before it is due every year with a single phone call. Service usually lands around same time so done at same time.
Tyres are replaced as needed I just drop car off on way to work and collect when done.

I only change car as necessary so usually around every 5 years ish.

Car admin is not really a thing. Life admin isnt really its day to day tasks that people turn into a designated job.

The days we used to have to go to the post office for tax disc.... I dont miss them