Ashgrove and Waterworks Road
The main road
Waterworks Road is Ashgrove's main thoroughfare. It runs from The Gap through St Johns Wood, Ashgrove and Red Hill, then becomes Musgrave Road into the city, and the 8 km between The Gap and Red Hill was widened from two lanes to four between 1999 and 2003.
Trams once, buses now
Trams ran up Waterworks Road to Ashgrove from 1924 until 5 August 1968. Today it's buses, including the Great Circle Line and the CityGlider, and no train, so the car tends to do the trips the bus doesn't.
Into the hills
Just west, The Gap sits in the valley between Mount Coot-tha and Enoggera Hill on the Taylor Range. Ithaca Creek and Enoggera Creek wind through Ashgrove itself, with shared paths along both.
Repairs off the street
Brisbane City Council's local law bans car repairs on council roads and footpaths, apart from emergencies like a flat tyre or a flat battery. If your car lives on the street outside an old Queenslander, a mobile mechanic will need a driveway or carport to do anything more.
What short runs do to an engine
A drive to the Waterworks Road shops and back may never get the engine properly warm. Short trips are especially hard on oil, because water and other contaminants build up when it doesn't get hot enough to drive them off, and frequent trips under about 15 km count as severe use. The fix is simple: ask for the oil to be changed on the shorter, severe-use interval in your owner's manual. Oil changes explains what's involved.
Diesels have a second problem. The particulate filter needs a decent run to clean itself, and RAA suggests a weekly 20 to 30-minute drive at highway speeds. If the DPF light comes on, exhaust and DPF repairs in Brisbane covers what to do.
Where we'd start
For a car that mostly does short runs, we'd follow the maker's severe-use schedule, change the oil on the shorter interval and take it for a longer drive once a week. If it's a diesel, that longer drive matters even more.