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20 000 miles or depending on your vehicle's manufacturer's recommendations.

A note on the fuel filter life. You can greatly extend the life span of your fuel filter by not allowing your fuel tank to go near empty. Most of impurities inside your fuel tank are heavier than gasoline and will sink to the bottom of your tank. Over the time the deposit built inside the fuel tank can accumulate and when you allow your fuel to near empty tank those deposits are disturbed and will flow to your fuel lines clogging your fuel filter.

If your vehicle is older than few years and you find yourself in situation where you cannot avoid the above make sure you make the fuel tank flush the regular procedure (every 30 000 miles or so). This will save your vehicle from developing the major mechanical problems down the road and will also improve your fuel economy.

Second tip on maintaining your fuel system is where possible fill your tank only at newer built gas stations. Older underground gas tanks will over the time crack allowing the water and other impurities to leach into the storage tank and from there inside your vehicle. Newer built gas stations have not yet developed that problem.

- Tires. Make sure your tires are properly inflated. Even if you have no leak in the tire over the time your tires will loose some air causing them to partially deflate. Underinflated tires will cause your vehicle to burn about 3% more fuel. Recently some tire shops had been offering the option of inflating the newly installed tires with nitrogen instead of air. They claim that this will save up to 5% on your fuel bill but I doubt that.

Atmospheric air is composed of about 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen and 1% other gases.

So, you are already running the 78% nitrogen inside your tires by simply inflating it with the air. And since many service stations do not have facilities to allow you to add nitrogen to your tires once they start to deflate. More likely than not you will find yourself abstaining from adding air to your tires for the fear of not contaminating that fancy nitrogen fill up you got therefore actually lessening the fuel economy of your vehicle as a result of driving with underinflated tires not to mention the extra wear and tear that the underinflated tire will cause itself to become subject of (uneven pattern wear, crack development on tire wall/side, etc.).

It is more recommended to use just air to inflate your tires but to make sure your tires are always inflated according to specifications.

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