DIY oil change or take it in for sake of service record?

When we got our 2010 I was a bit concerned too. Finally decided to go DIY, from the outset. It may cause some concern, for potential buyers, do not know.

A practical caution: if this will be your first DIY oil change, I'd either do it a week or two before your trip, or delay 'till after. Just in case you encounter problems. More than a few owners, doing their first oil change after dealership service, find gotchas. One of the most common is overtorqued oil filter.

I'm not familiar with the v oil change, but if it's similar to a regular Prius, there'll be a plastic panel on the underside, between you and the oil drain bolt and filter. My suggestion would be to remove it completely for the oil change, but it's debatable. A lot of owners just bend back a localized flap at the drain bolt. My concern: the first time I did this I found it REALLY didn't want to bend. It's a thin/hard plastic, too brittle for this app, imho. Whatever fasteners you remove, keep the sorted, and wash the grit out of them before reinstalling.

Also, again at least on a regular Prius, the oil filter is a paper element only, in a hard plastic housing that you reuse. The replacement filter comes with an O-ring replacement for the filter housing too. Make sure you've got a solid oil filter socket, 14 face, 64.5 mm inside face-to-face.

Again, just regular Prius info: drain bolt torque is 27 lb/ft, and the filter cap is 18 lb/ft.

 

I'd save the money & DIY. If the job isn't done to your satisfaction then you know who to blame. I believe the value of reported service records is overblown. There's a post here showing a Toyota service record where every trip doesn't have a description. Is that the proof you want that the oil is changed?

 

You can add DIY service entries to the My Toyota site. Carfax is mainly to make sure it hasn't been wrecked, I wouldn't expect every dealer service to make it onto a Carfax.

 

Toyota delete's the DIY entries after the car changes hands.

 

The ToyotaOwners maintenance record shows entries for maintenance done by the dealer for the previous owner, and shows my sole DIY entry, but inexplicably does NOT show the two "free" oil changes they've done for me. ??? Meanwhile the maintenance history record used by dealers (shared with all dealers through their network) shows everything they've done for both owners, but not my DIY item.

 

They don't delete them, they just don't show up on someone else's "MY" Toyota, nothing you enter yourself on your MYToyota can be accessed by another owner.

 

Interesting. Who can access it? If subsequent owners can't and, at least in my recent experience, dealers can't either, what's the point in retaining that information? I think I'd like to know what service a previous owner claimed to have performed (or to have had done by a third party) than not, even I were unsure of the previous owner's reliability.

 

Methinks someone with web design smarts could fill a gap: sort of like Fuelly, but for DIY maintenance recording.

 

But the info is of no use to you, the previous owner could enter anything he wanted, even if he didn't do it. The point of it is to remind yourself what wants doing and what you or the dealer have done.

 

That doesn't answer my question as to why, at least according to yourself, Toyota retains maintenance data it reveals neither to dealers nor to subsequent owners. Dealers, as well as owners, might enter false maintenance data. Wouldn't you like to know what the previous owner claimed to have done, and when, just in case (s)he might have been truthful?

 

I guess the answer is that there is no reasonably practical method to document maintenance, especially DIY, but even dealership maintenance to some degree.

 

I am a DIY guy and do all light maintenance work on my own. I keep all receipts (oil, filter and what not) that can be matched to the maintenance description in my notebook. I have been doing this for the past 35 years and never had any issues when I sold my cars to private parties. For my wife's Prius, I will take advantage of the complementary 2 year maintenance but after that do my own maintenance.

 

Funny thing is: you can hand them over your book and log, and they're miles ahead of what they'd get from the dealership.

I keep a duotang with any and all receipts, and a text file diary that parallels it. On the front inside page of the duotang I've stapled a few business cards with crucial phone numbers, and penciled in a myriad of bits of info, parts no's, torque values for all the basic maintenance items, auto window reset procedure, that sort of thing.

 

I do a similar thing, but I've seen dealers here in the UK throw it all in the dumpster if you trade the car in and give them the records you kept.

 

The best long term value would be for you to keep and drive the car long term.....until it's only worth $1,000.

10 years from now, maintenance records won't mean anything to me unless somebody shows me THEIR maintenance records.
Dealer 10K oil changes have never impressed me much since so many of the smokers and drinkers out there (cars that use oil) are "dealer maintained." Dealers never check the oil BEFORE they change it, and I've heard too many horror stories of dealer maintenance gone awry.
Too many of the people who drive cars these days never prop their own hoods open and check the oil, and Prius owners are usually either the type that never check their own oil, or they have the log book with all of the receipts for gas, oil, wiper blades, tire rotations, brake checks, car washes, etc.
Car maintenance obviously isn't all about just oil changes, but whether or not the owner is serious about properly maintaining a car usually expresses itself by whether or not they check their own fluids.

After about 10 years, you can nearly ALWAYS tell the difference between cars that have been lovingly maintained and those that have not, and if you're trading out cars much earlier than that, are you actually selling them or trading them in at a dealership?

If you're trading instead of selling?
It's simply not going to matter.

YMMV

PS.....DIY versus Dealer is a no brainer.
Nobody is going to care about your car more than YOU do, but if you have to get the service done at the dealership and you're one of the 'logbook' owners?
It's going to be obvious 10 years from now.

Good Luck!

 

Does anybody get their maintenance book "stamped" anymore. Seems like Brits more so, North America nope.