First Car & First Maintenance.
 

Hello everyone,


My apologies in regards to these question but i think they need to be asked, more specifically for a first time car/FR-S owner in order to safe guard from any mistakes i'm sure a lot of first time car owners will encounter.

I bought my car brand new, and it came with complimentary oil change on the first one. The second time i went into the dealership was for just an oil change and nothing special.

This time i went into the dealership, i was told to the following:

Maintenance servicing required. $185 dollars.
Secure drive shaft bolts. $ 30 Dollars. <-- ???

Without a doubt you can't go wrong with following the manual from the manufacturer. They said that one should always be alternating between a normal oil change, and maintenance servicing between each time at the dealership, is this true?


Is this a common price range to have your car maintenance? This is my first car, and i have no idea but to follow the manual. But i think i got upsold on the securing draft shaft bolts.. The advisor said something it being a rear wheel drive therefore its recommended *emphatically* to be done...


Overall, my main questions to the audience is what are the maintenance activities you guys do, and do you bring it in every other time for a maintenance check, after an oil change. If this is common practice then i must just accept it, but it certainly left me with a bad experience as i am not too too familiar with cars.


Thank you!

How many kilometres do you have?
Was the car new and if so how old now?


Securing drive shaft bolts is the most ludicrous thing I have ever heard and should be warranty if loose.

I bought it brand new. July 2014. so far 2 Oil Changes, and now my third one including this maintenance.

Currently at 27,500 km or 17,000 Miles.

Not much i can do now, but i will definitely learn from this lesson, and hoping to learn more from you guys on the board in terms of maintenance requirements, and how often should i be paying that $185 dollar fee.


:sigh:

So you should be at a normal oil change and basic inspection service. This cost me $75 at my dealer. You will have a bigger service at 32K kms that cost me about $200.


I would see what the hell they claim to have done for $185. They should have given you a report sheet that says what the checked or did.


The whole schedule for Canadian cars is here.


http://consumer.xtime.com/menuportal...&inframe=false

I can't speak to the Canadian warranty and free first services, but, here in the US (with my 2013 model FRS), the first 3 services (oil and filter change) were FREE, which covered the first 20 some thousand miles.


humfrz

Nope no free services here unless it was a dealer offer.

Your owners's documents (manual, warranty, etc) will have a detailed scheduled maintenance procedure. Just follow it!

sounds about right, sorry.

185 plus tax = around 200 as well.

Is this normal to be charged that? every other oil change?

Should i be paying that?

Can't believe they sold me on the drive shaft bolts.. no idea what they were saying.. but apparently really important.. =.=

Take a look at the schedule I linked for you. You will get an idea of the ones that will cost you more by the level of work they need to do. Click on the full schedule link at the top and it goes way out.

As far as I remember from my maintenace schedule booklet, "retorque drive shaft bolts" was a scheduled maintenance item on all Toyotas. Can't remember now how often was it supposed to be done, maybe I'll check later if I find the booklet.

Be interested in seeing that one. If it is indeed part of the schedule then it should be built into that service price not a $30 upcharge.

Agreed.
I would certainly try to get a printout or write-up of what they did/checked for that $185.

My 45 cost me 140
My next will be big dif tranny oil and plugs. Expecting 400+$ but we will see

Diff and trans fluid is easy to change if you wanted to DIY. Need a little pump for the diff though, bout 12$.

I did my trans and diff fluids at about 15k miles and they were both dark and plugs are caked in metal shavings/powder. Glad I changed it when I did

OK, I was partially wrong. It's a 2007 booklet, covering Avalon, Camry, Camry Solara, Corolla, Corolla Matrix, Yaris, and some trucks and SUVs. And "re-torque drive shaft bolt" was required only for Corolla and Corolla Matrix (and 4WD RAV4 of trucks and SUVs) every 15,000 miles. Or more often under "special operating conditions", basically when towing all the time or something like that.


Also, in most trucks and SUVs (except Highlander and RAV4) one should retorque propeller shaft bolt every 15k. Didn't know these trucks could fly ;)

To answer the OP's question, no, you should be expecting to pay that much for regular maintenance. Always follow the manual and always ask what the techs are going to be doing to your car before hand. The service desk is always going to try to "upsell" you on crap that you don't need to increase their revenue.

I have a lot of stories, and my companies VP recently purchased a Hyundai. His service desk tried to get him to pay $400+ on his 10k KM maintenance, part of which was an alignment check....