Older vehicle upkeep?

[ExitLeft]

DW and I both have 2006 Toyota Highlanders, which we bought new. ~$33k all-in each, 5/06 purchase dates. According to KBB, we'd be lucky to get $8k for them, putting the annual cost at ~$2,300. DW has ~138k miles (18c/mile), and mine (which I've recently passed on to DD) ~155k (16c/mile) (not sure what the full expense $ have been over that timeframe). I do my own oil/filters and the cars have been reliable. Have had a couple episodes, alternator went up while on a road trip, DW's has a leaky A/C that needs recharging every few years. But old car maintenance (timing belt, rotors, spark plugs) is getting expensive, ~$4k in the last year on timing belts, rotors/brakes. Havent paid for the spark plugs yet, which is estimated at $2k due to how hard they are to reach according to the indep toy mechanic we use.

 

[Omalley]

DW and I both have 2006 Toyota Highlanders, which we bought new. ~$33k all-in each, 5/06 purchase dates. According to KBB, we'd be lucky to get $8k for them, putting the annual cost at ~$2,300. DW has ~138k miles (18c/mile), and mine (which I've recently passed on to DD) ~155k (16c/mile) (not sure what the full expense $ have been over that timeframe). I do my own oil/filters and the cars have been reliable. Have had a couple episodes, alternator went up while on a road trip, DW's has a leaky A/C that needs recharging every few years. But old car maintenance (timing belt, rotors, spark plugs) is getting expensive, ~$4k in the last year on timing belts, rotors/brakes. Havent paid for the spark plugs yet, which is estimated at $2k due to how hard they are to reach according to the indep toy mechanic we use.

I have never changed the plugs on a 06 Highlander, but just watched several videos showing the job taking about 20 minutes. Yes, there are a couple of covers that need to be removed to access the plugs, but it seems criminal to charge someone $2k for this service.

 

[FIREmenow]

DW and I both have 2006 Toyota Highlanders, which we bought new. ~$33k all-in each, 5/06 purchase dates. According to KBB, we'd be lucky to get $8k for them, putting the annual cost at ~$2,300. DW has ~138k miles (18c/mile), and mine (which I've recently passed on to DD) ~155k (16c/mile) (not sure what the full expense $ have been over that timeframe). I do my own oil/filters and the cars have been reliable. Have had a couple episodes, alternator went up while on a road trip, DW's has a leaky A/C that needs recharging every few years. But old car maintenance (timing belt, rotors, spark plugs) is getting expensive, ~$4k in the last year on timing belts, rotors/brakes. Havent paid for the spark plugs yet, which is estimated at $2k due to how hard they are to reach according to the indep toy mechanic we use.

Yep - on all my previous cars, there seemed to be a "knee in the curve" where stuff just starts going wrong sort of exponentially.

I fix all my own stuff, but at some point (you can kind of "feel it"), and it varies depending on the car manufacturer and/or miles, you just know it's time.

 

[Big_Hitter]

I have never changed the plugs on a 06 Highlander, but just watched several videos showing the job taking about 20 minutes. Yes, there are a couple of covers that need to be removed to access the plugs, but it seems criminal to charge someone $2k for this service.

$2K? What? no way those are more difficult than plugs on a turbo subaru and those are only 1-2 hours labor max

 

[ExitLeft]

I have never changed the plugs on a 06 Highlander, but just watched several videos showing the job taking about 20 minutes. Yes, there are a couple of covers that need to be removed to access the plugs, but it seems criminal to charge someone $2k for this service.

Sorry, I misspoke. I double-checked. About $600, since the intake plenum has to come off. I was off by a lot, but I knew it was a big number for something that seemed to me to be so simple. Toyota generally designs maintanable cars, so this surprised me. I'll have to look for the videos you mentioned to see if I can do it. (they're V6's).

 

[braumeister]

I don't remember what it was, but I read some years ago about a car (foreign make IIRC) that had the spark plugs in such a location that you had to unfasten the engine mounts and lift the engine in order to reach them. Or maybe it was the oil filter. Anyway, it made for lots of good copy in the car magazines of the day.

 

[Walt34]

I don't remember what it was, but I read some years ago about a car (foreign make IIRC) that had the spark plugs in such a location that you had to unfasten the engine mounts and lift the engine in order to reach them. Or maybe it was the oil filter.

I seem to recall hearing about both happening in the 1960's, and thinking that the engineer(s) who designed cars like that should be given a fair trial and then taken out and shot.

Of course this comes from a guy who can remember in high school climbing down into the engine compartment (at 130 lbs. or less I could do that) to set the points on the distributor. Now it's hard to find room to get your hand in there, and forget about it if you want to do it while holding a wrench.

 

[Clone]

I don't remember what it was, but I read some years ago about a car (foreign make IIRC) that had the spark plugs in such a location that you had to unfasten the engine mounts and lift the engine in order to reach them. Or maybe it was the oil filter. Anyway, it made for lots of good copy in the car magazines of the day.

I had a mini-van at one time. When you changed the spark plugs on the back side, it was easiest to take loose the engine mount that was near the top of the grill. Then you could put a strap on the engine and roll it forward. Just enough to reach the plugs which were basically under the dash. It was not a big deal.

Spark plugs will wear out around 141,000 miles. When they go bad, it takes out the coil also. (I learned that on a vehicle at 141,000 miles). The platinum sparkplugs last longer, but at the time they were not used as standard equipment.

I try to trade vehicles somewhere between 90,000 and 125,000 miles now. My last two pickups were traded at 110,000 miles. They only thing we did were oil changes, and a couple air filters. We traded them because we needed to put new tires on them, and figured we would not get a nickle more for a vehicle that had a set of tires with only 15,000 miles on them.

 

[John Galt III]

$500 for a timing belt is crazy cheap. Is the water pump driven off the belt? If so, it makes sense to change the water pump as well. You may get by with reusing the tensioner, but I can't imagine that a pro would do so because of liability issues.

The water pump is not driven by the timing belt on this car. What a horrible idea. I inherited this car. I had considered buying one of these (Hyundai Elantra) since otherwise it is a great car, but the timing belt drove me away. Google timing belt cost and it says $300 to $500 in general. I ended up getting a Nissan Versa since it has a chain, but I am stuck with those hard-to-change spark plugs. Have to remove the intake manifold!! I plan to do it myself, though. Looks doable from the videos I've seen. Original plugs are supposedly good for 88,000 or (98,000?) miles. AMazing.

 

[brett]

I did three timing belts on the Camry. Well worth the money. It was the only big expense that I ever had through 250K miles. Always did the water pump at the same time. Just had the Solara done last month-water pump as well.