Keilor's roads and river flats
The Calder Freeway
The Calder runs through Keilor on its way to the Tullamarine Freeway at Airport West, with interchanges at the Melton Highway and at Green Gully and Arundel roads. Since it was widened to three lanes each way in 2008, the limit northbound from Keilor Park Drive to the Melton Highway has been 80 km/h.
The old road to Bendigo
In the gold rush, Keilor was a camping place for bullock teams and a stopover for travellers heading to the diggings. That road is now the Calder, which carries on through Gisborne, Kyneton and Castlemaine to Bendigo, so a weekend run north means long highway kilometres.
Market gardens north of the freeway
The part of Keilor north of the Calder sits on the Maribyrnong flood plain and is home to many market gardens. A ute that works the gardens does a very different job from a car that commutes on the freeway.
Which Keilor?
Keilor East, Keilor Park, Keilor Downs, Keilor North and Keilor Lodge are all separate suburbs. Keilor itself is 3036; for the others, use the postcode where the car is.
Servicing a Keilor car
A car that does the Calder twice a day usually reaches its service by distance before the 12 months are up. Makers set the interval, and RACV's rule of thumb for a minor service is 10,000 to 15,000 km.
Many service books also list a shorter schedule for vehicles that work in dust, mud or short hauls. If it's a ute on the market gardens, say so when you send the job, and give the model so it goes to someone who works on that kind of vehicle. 4WD and diesel in Melbourne.
If it were our car
For a vehicle that splits its time between freeway runs and farm work, we'd tell the mechanic both and ask which schedule in the book fits. Before a long drive up the Calder, we'd add a look at the tyres and the cooling system.