I do currently check tyres frequently. Mainly because I like to keep fuel consumption to a minimum and the only time I've spent on the hard shoulder is because of a tyre decompressing - checking wouldn't have helped there, a large metal disc (diameter was width of car) had fallen off some lorry and it sliced completely through the inner sidewall of one rear tyre while being held in place by opposite wheel. Don't want to repeat that!
Remembers that`s for an engine running in spec, they can burn through a lot more oil than that with a fault that you might not pick up.
Plus how long does it actually take to check the fluids and tyres - 5 minutes? At the moment i`m checking the fluids in my car before every journey as there is a small leak somewhere in the coolant system that I can`t get fixed until later in the week, but I`m having to drive to and from a new office 40 miles away. The car is fine, but rather than cook the engine i`m being very paranoid, really taking it easy on the drive and keeping a better eye than normal on the temperature :-)
I don`t on my own car, but I have to sign to say that the car has been checked each time I take one out. Plus the nature of the work puts a lot of stress on the car and tyres, and we get quite a few slow punctures. After having a tyre go pop on me in lane 3 of a motorway I`m really very keen on avoiding it happen again - controlled it and got it somewhere safe, but not an experience I particularly enjoyed. :-)
Conor made a good point about it costing less to repair problems when they are caught early. Example - girlfriend wasn`t checking her tyres often enough, tracking got knocked out and tyres got to being very nearly illegal on the inside edge. She HAD to drive to a friends 200 miles away then evening, and couldn`t take time of work, so we had to get someone out to replace her tyres while she was at work, which cost an extra £20-£30, plus the tyres needed replacing when there was still a lot of tread left on the outside. She`d have got another 5000 miles at least out of the tyres if she`d pick up on it earlier and got the tracking fixed. If she`d seen it earlier it`s about £20 for the tracking, when she did spot it it costs about £160 all in. That`s a very big difference :-)
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