Auto Maintenance - What Do We Really Need?

[Mr. Tightwad]

I think he was referring to those privately owned vehicles that run on smug.

Smug ='s excessive pride. I wouldn't say that's what I see posted by others or myself. Perhaps it reads that way to others.

Pointing out one option has a multitude of service and repair requirements, and the other avoids all those hassles, I call that discussion, not smug.

But if I'm guilty I'm guilty.

 

[MichaelB]

Pointing out one option has a multitude of service and repair requirements, and the other avoids all those hassles, I call that discussion, not smug.

When the thread topic is about service and car maintenance, I’d call that a thread hijack. But smug is definitely more clever.

 

[PatrickA5]

My Honda dealership doesn't seem to want to make much money off of me. Since I drive about 2,500 miles per year - they wouldn't even change the oil until after it was a couple of years old (about 5,000 miles). I took it in a couple of times to get a free inspection and a donut. Now that my 2016 Accord has finally crossed the 10K threshold, I tend to have the oil changed every year - regardless of mileage. Sure enough, my year is up and I get a email coupon for a full synthetic oil change for 19.95, so I made an appointment for Friday. I might give them $20 for a tire rotation - just so they can make a little off of me.

I do have an independent (Honda only) place that I've taken cars to in the past for major repairs, but their oil change is double what the dealership charges.

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

FYI
I mentioned it elsewhere, my 1999 Suburban 3/4 ton had the first brake fluid change a few monts ago, around 130,000 miles. It was as result of me having decided that the 20 year old flexibe brake lines had seen better days, had them changed. Blown brake lines in winter are not fun.

Naturally the brake system got drained when said lines were removed.


YMMV

Several years ago I bought a 2005 Ford Ranger 4WD that was generally in decent shape but had some areas of neglect. One of them was that the brake fluid was very dark, obviously had never been changed.

Since then I've replaced both rear wheel cylinders and the master cylinder. I bought the truck with about 100K miles; it currently has 127K.

Did the seals in those brake components fail due to neglect? Of course I have no idea. I would have changed the fluid after five years, at least, instead of 10. But age may have killed them rather than bad fluid.

Also in my driveway is a 1995 BMW 540i with 295K miles. The master is original, as well as the rear calipers. I have replaced the front calipers in the 15 years I've owned it. I bleed the fluid every three or four years. The car has seen track and autocross use.

Maybe the BMW components are just better than Ford's. Or, the service I've given them have paid off. No way of knowing, I guess.

 

[Music Lover]

Smug ='s excessive pride. I wouldn't say that's what I see posted by others or myself. Perhaps it reads that way to others.

Pointing out one option has a multitude of service and repair requirements, and the other avoids all those hassles, I call that discussion, not smug.

But if I'm guilty I'm guilty.

Most new engines will last 200k with just routine maintenance once or twice a year. For many people, that's 10 years or more with little or nothing to worry about.

Tires, brakes, touch screens, and dozens of other things are common to all vehicles including electric, and the maintenance issues are similar.

 

[Nick12]

I did a little bit of investigative detective work when I went to a dealer which I don't too anymore to that specific dealer when the service writer kept recommending services and repairs to all in the waiting room when the service writers go over the bill with each customer. I asked a mechanic outside the building " How is business ? " The tech spilled the beans and told me that the service center is very slow and struggling to get business. It is not rocket science to figure out what is going on.

 

[bolt]

My Honda dealership doesn't seem to want to make much money off of me. Since I drive about 2,500 miles per year - they wouldn't even change the oil until after it was a couple of years old (about 5,000 miles). I took it in a couple of times to get a free inspection and a donut. Now that my 2016 Accord has finally crossed the 10K threshold, I tend to have the oil changed every year - regardless of mileage. Sure enough, my year is up and I get a email coupon for a full synthetic oil change for 19.95, so I made an appointment for Friday. I might give them $20 for a tire rotation - just so they can make a little off of me.

I do have an independent (Honda only) place that I've taken cars to in the past for major repairs, but their oil change is double what the dealership charges.

Despite previous behavior hopefully you realize thats because they will upsell you on everything else,..sooner or later.
$19.99 w/synthetic oil their loosing money.
Their paying the tech, the rent, the tax, the oil. etc.
Particularly now that it's an older auto w/low miles.
Any, and every auto 95% of the time use 'something'. Its arbitrary, belts, hoses, fluids, etc.
Maintenance on autos is very arbitrary, despite their manuals suggestions.imo

Good luck & Best wishes....

 

[Dtail]

Lots of good advice, but clearly more difficult for those of us who do not perform any car maintenance ourselves.
I currently go to an independent dealer except for the current free maintenance on the newer car.
I am fine with their service overall, but they have also tried a little of upsell, but not major.
It is hard to trust many shops in this area.

 

[CRLLS]

"It's the thermotrocle that's feeding the framis and discombobulating the turboencabulator, you know what I'm saying?"

"Oh, yes, I understand that."

"Nobody else in town will do it; they all send their really hard jobs to me. I'm up to here in work. You'll have to leave it and I'll get to just as soon as I possibly can."

"Thank you so much. I was really worried about it, but it's in good hands now and I know you'll charge me a fair price."

You had me at turboencabulator

The windshield washer stopped working - fluid wasn't coming out - and when I looked in the reservoir I couldn't see anything, so I put some Rainx in there. When this did not work, I called the dealership for an appointment, since the warranty was still active. Didn't want to go fiddling around in there on my own looking for something loose

The man at the dealership asked if I'd put any fluid in the reservoir, and I said yes. "Was it Hyundai washer fluid? Anything else will invalidate the warranty. Anything but the Hyundai formula could gum it up." I hung up. And checked the owner's manual again. It says Hyundai fluid is recommended, but nothing about "don't use anything else."

When I told them this at our regular shop, they fell around laughing. "How are they gonna know if it's Hyundai fluid in there? Do they come in different colors?" "Are you sure you didn't call the Ferrari dealership by mistake?"

Well, I stewed about this for weeks. Finally I took the car to the dealership without mentioning that I'd added any fluid. In 15 minutes they found that a tube had come out of the reservoir, put it back in and the washer has worked fine ever since.

So the moral is...actually, I'm not sure. Don't answer questions from a car dealership?

Really? This BS still happens? What surprises me is that your "regular shop" laughed and didn't even look at it! That it took the 2nd trip to the dealer 15 minutes to perform a 2 minute fix is beyond belief to me.

I know the dealership is not going to be the least expensive place for routine oil changes. I do go to the dealer for oil changes and "complimentary inspections" One, because they are recording the service and would not have any issue for my 100,000 mile/10 yr powertrain warranty. And two, a 2nd eye on wear items is always helpful. I can always do the verification. I do most of my repairs myself. With my 2012 Hyundai, beyond brakes, I have replaced broken sway bar links and a broken front strut/spring. Of course, repairs are required less these days than they were, say, 50 years ago.

 

[rk911]

Despite previous behavior hopefully you realize thats because they will upsell you on everything else,..sooner or later.
$19.99 w/synthetic oil their loosing money.
Their paying the tech, the rent, the tax, the oil. etc.
Particularly now that it's an older auto w/low miles.
Any, and every auto 95% of the time use 'something'. Its arbitrary, belts, hoses, fluids, etc.
Maintenance on autos is very arbitrary, despite their manuals suggestions.imo

Good luck & Best wishes....

years ago my wife preferred taking her jeep to a firestone dealer for routine maintenance. so she's there one morning to get an oil change. i'm in my office when the phone rings. when i answer all i hear is her saying..."talk to the man!". and then a man starts talking about her jeep. seems that when she pulled in the service writer noticed that her right rear blinker was out and was trying to sell her....get this...a blinker diagnostic. i think she said it was $29.95 and he wouldn't take no for an answer so she called me. trying to suppress a laugh i told him to just change the bulb and to call me back if that didn't solve the problem. it was the bulb. that was her last visit to firestone as she started taking her jeep to the same small independent garage i was using.

 

[PatrickA5]

Despite previous behavior hopefully you realize thats because they will upsell you on everything else,..sooner or later.
$19.99 w/synthetic oil their loosing money.
Their paying the tech, the rent, the tax, the oil. etc.
Particularly now that it's an older auto w/low miles.
Any, and every auto 95% of the time use 'something'. Its arbitrary, belts, hoses, fluids, etc.
Maintenance on autos is very arbitrary, despite their manuals suggestions.imo

Good luck & Best wishes....

Sure, I realize that. But, I tend to buy new cars every 6 or 7 years, so I seldom get to the point that really expensive stuff happens. The few times that the dealership tried to upsell some arbitrary big-ticket service item, I took it to my local Honda independent shop and they did it for around 60% of the cost of the dealership or said it didn't need to be done at all.

The last two oil changes on my DW's Honda Pilot were completely free because she filled out some kind of survey with all good marks. They must get paid for good marks by Honda or something. We're not complaining.

The worst up-sell was with my 2008 Infiniti. It was probably 8 years old at the time and I took it in for an oil change and they found $7,500 worth of problems. The manager was embarrassed as he was reading it off. I really have no idea how much of it was really needed. I traded it in 6 months later without having any of the work done.

 

[travelover]

Re brake fluid, it does absorb water over time and you may not have a problem with it until you get the brakes really hot like on a mountain descent. Then, the water turns to steam and you lose braking. So, changing it periodically is not bogus maintenance.

 

[BeachOrCity]

Sadly one can’t even rely on the “manual”. When they did not include free maintenance the manuals suggested maintenance at frequent intervals. Then when they started offering free maintenance for a few years all of the sudden that maintenance interval and requirement was much less.

I do have two things to recommend however.
1. Anti freeze
2. Transmission fluid.

For number 1. NEVER flush. But you must drain and fill every few years. Even the good stuff breaks down. Flushing can wreck your car.

For number 2. They call it lifetime fluid. It’s not. At 100k or 10 years whichever is first, drain and replace including replacing filter. Otherwise the gunk will start to wreck your transmission.

My own personal experience. By flushing once on number 1 I wrecked my car. By believing lifetime tx fluid on number 2 I needed a new transmission to the tune of 5k.

Lessons learned!

 

[mystang52]

"Your brake pads are a little low." "Your tire tread is getting low." I seem to hear this every time I take my car in for regular scheduled maintenance. I guess both quotes are literally true, but unless pushed for details they never mention that nothing need be done at that moment.
Years ago I had a customer service problem with my Lexus dealer. Speaking with the Service Manager in his office, l saw a whiteboard with service goals for each service rep. I only got a quick look, but I'm positive the figures were over a million $ each, presumably an annual target.

 

[Montecfo]

We have a lot of folks saying the same things and they are right. You have to find an honest independent shop and this is not easy. When you find it it is like gold. I have been absolutely amazed how many times.i have been lied to. And when you have older cars as I do (03 BMW, 07 Camry) it happens more and more.

Another thing no one has mentioned: ask them their shop labor rate. You will be surprised how much these vary and how much difference that can make on a labor intensive job.

There is no substitute for being an informed consumer. It pays off more with autos than just about anything else. Except maybe funerals but no routine service there.

The OP was talking about changing drive belts and needing a special tool, still cheaply bought. I did this on my 1969 Plymouth Valiant and it was a $2 belt, a wrench and a crow bar were all that was needed. No way my young self was hiring that done! Harder with today's cars but you can still find tasks to do yourself if you wish to.

The comments from CR usually helpful for cars!

 

[JoeWras]

The veiled references to EVs do bring up an interesting problem for car dealers, no?

Even ICE cars require much less maintenance than they used to. And this trend will only continue. The maintenance will never be as slim as an EV, but it is going to get darn near close.

And so the reason this thread is hot. These dealers are getting desperate and are giving hard sells while they have you in the room. The future of their marble floored waiting rooms is in jeopardy.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. ICE or EV, there will always be a service bay. Suspensions break, electrical systems go wonky, air conditioning fails, etc. But the gravy train of regular, easy maintenance on cars under 5 years old has decreased and will continue.

 

[Venturer]

years ago my wife preferred taking her jeep to a firestone dealer for routine maintenance. so she's there one morning to get an oil change. i'm in my office when the phone rings. when i answer all i hear is her saying..."talk to the man!". and then a man starts talking about her jeep. seems that when she pulled in the service writer noticed that her right rear blinker was out and was trying to sell her....get this...a blinker diagnostic. i think she said it was $29.95 and he wouldn't take no for an answer so she called me. trying to suppress a laugh i told him to just change the bulb and to call me back if that didn't solve the problem. it was the bulb. that was her last visit to firestone as she started taking her jeep to the same small independent garage i was using.

LOL if you had of said Goodyear it would have been the same thing. My daughter was living off campus and called me one day as well. She said she was getting her oil changed and the guy told her her filter was dirty and they changed it for her. She thanked the guy then went in to pay the bill. Yep her $29.95 oil change ended up costing her $78.72. The air filter that we sold at my Autozone for $10.50 was 31.50 then they charged a disposal fee on both filters + misc. labor. I told her to hang on to the bill till we got there this weekend. We were going to visit anyway so when we got there I went with her to the shop and I went in to ask the manager how much an oil change was for my car and I had looked and I needed an air filter as well. He looked in the computer and said $29.95+$16.75 air filter++3.00 disposal fee +tax= $52.63 I then went outside and brought in my daughter and ask if he remembered her. She then said daddy he wasn't the one that waited on me. It turned out after he looked at the bill that his service manager had been doing some hand written receipts on the owner's days off then ringing them in later and pocketing the difference. He apologized to her refunded her money and never charged her for her oil changes for the next 2 years. he told her he investigated and the guy was fired the next week. Even now 20 some odd yrs. later if my DD takes her car in for any service and the place tries to sell her any other service she tells them to make her an estimate and she will let them know, then she will let me look at it to see if she needs it.

 

[Aerides]

She said she was getting her oil changed and the guy told her her filter was dirty and they changed it for her.

At least 75% of the time I go for an oil change I get this line, but it's before they change it. I would go full Karen if they told me they'd already done it and were charging me.

The typical route is they show me "my" dirty filter as evidence and ask if I want it changed, and I always say, nope, thanks, maybe next time. I wonder if some of these places just keep a dirty one ready as bait for any female driver.

Men, make sure you teach your daughters the same car maintenance tricks you learned - how to change and check stuff on their own. Most of us don't get those lessons, and the dealers, etc., know that full well.

 

[JoeWras]

The typical route is they show me "my" dirty filter as evidence and ask if I want it changed, and I always say, nope, thanks, maybe next time. I wonder if some of these places just keep a dirty one ready as bait for any female driver.

Nope. As I shared in a previous post on this thread, they got me with this scam.

I'm a car guy. I'm a PITA engineer. I even replaced the damn filter myself a few times, fairly recently to the incident. But I was in a hurry and made the emotional decision at the time and just said "do it."

It's OK. They are forever on my boycott list because of it. I'm taking retroactive action.

 

[rk911]

LOL if you had of said Goodyear it would have been the same thing. My daughter was living off campus and called me one day as well. She said she was getting her oil changed and the guy told her her filter was dirty and they changed it for her. She thanked the guy then went in to pay the bill. Yep her $29.95 oil change ended up costing her $78.72. The air filter that we sold at my Autozone for $10.50 was 31.50 then they charged a disposal fee on both filters + misc. labor. I told her to hang on to the bill till we got there this weekend. We were going to visit anyway so when we got there I went with her to the shop and I went in to ask the manager how much an oil change was for my car and I had looked and I needed an air filter as well. He looked in the computer and said $29.95+$16.75 air filter++3.00 disposal fee +tax= $52.63 I then went outside and brought in my daughter and ask if he remembered her. She then said daddy he wasn't the one that waited on me. It turned out after he looked at the bill that his service manager had been doing some hand written receipts on the owner's days off then ringing them in later and pocketing the difference. He apologized to her refunded her money and never charged her for her oil changes for the next 2 years. he told her he investigated and the guy was fired the next week. Even now 20 some odd yrs. later if my DD takes her car in for any service and the place tries to sell her any other service she tells them to make her an estimate and she will let them know, then she will let me look at it to see if she needs it.

there is always someone trying to separate you from your money. firing wasn't enough, he should have been arrested and charged with theft by deception.

 

[travelover]

Even independents can scam you. I had an $X dollars off on AC recharge coupon and I got a price on the phone for the AC recharge, no mention of coupon. Then, when I took it in, I inquired to confirm I could use the coupon.

Yep, when I picked it up, they had raised the price on the recharge to compensate for the coupon discount. I paid it, then went straight to Yelp, Google Maps and another site and blasted them. The owner called me and apologized and agreed to refund the overcharge - if I took down the reviews. I said pay me first. After he paid me, I added an addendum to say he had refunded the overcharge but left the facts as they were.

 

[NateW]

Why is it almost every trip to an auto dealer service department leads to all sorts of other recommended services beyond what you think you need? Almost every time I've compared what the dealer recommends to what's in the manufacturers maintenance manual, the dealer is WAY over padding "service." And they keep coming up with new services that have to be researched, at least for those of us who want what's truly needed/value added, and what's unnecessary. It seems dealer service departments will charge 2X-3X if you let them. Today I paid $79 for a synthetic oil change & tire rotation, they recommended a service that would have cost $328+tax (basic) or $608+tax ("show the love") - and more than half the services were "inspections" which suggests to me even more $ if they find something!!!

Today they recommended replacing brake fluid. Should that be done periodically, probably. But while at the dealership I did a little research online and manufacturers recommend from 20K to 150K miles! I think it was CR who I read says if your brake fluid is still clean and without water, it doesn't need to be replaced.

I'm tired of researching online during/after almost every visit. Anyone know of a resource that can recommend what's value added service and not? [For normal use like most of us, I realize there are exceptions for heavy use, offroad, extreme weather, towing, etc.]

Let me preface my response by saying I perform all the maintenance and repairs on both our cars, and have done all maintenance and repairs on the cars I drive since I began driving at age 16. I also keep cars a long qtime, about 20 years.

I perform on time the maintenance specified in the owner's manual. I also wash the cars a few times a year and twice a year apply an acrylic paint preservative. I clean the interior and vacuum it a few times a year too. I also lube all the door hinges, check rods, and latches and do likewise for the hood and trunk lid.

Yes, the brake fluid should be flushed every 2 to 3 years and the entire system must have the old fluid flushed out without introducing air into the system.

 

[davebarnes]

Car dealers don't make any money on selling new cars, they depend on service...

Which is why BEVs are going to kill them.

 

[RobbieB]

I just read the manual. The car tells me when to change the oil. The other stuff is on a list in the manual.

 

[Music Lover]

Which is why BEVs are going to kill them.

We've been hearing that for decades. I'm still waiting. If you buy from a reputable manufacturer you could go 10 years with nothing but oil changes once or twice a year.

All the other non-engine stuff like tires, brakes, suspension, etc. apply to all vehicles.