Scheduled Maintenance is expensive!

For years, I religiously changed brake fluid.

Now, I use these;



Brake fluid does not wear out, unless it absorbs water or becomes acidic. If it retains a normal PH of close to 7, it's fine.

 

What does your owner's manuel recommend? Many dealerships create maintenance issues to pad their bottom lines. If it is not in the owner's manuel, and you are not experiencing problems, then politely decline the service.

My 2010 has had the oil changed every 10,000 miles, and the filters changed every 15-20,000 miles, and that's it!

 

I'm sorry Bud but you bought a ticket to the Wallet Flush Express. Very best part of owning a Prius is its rather low maintenance.

If you bring your car to the dealer and throw them the keys and say change the oil your going to get vat oil. This is pretty crappy dino oil and your not doing your car any favors. Not to mention there's a guy working on your car with very little experience. The guys on the lube line are not professional techs. If you checked your oil after each change you will find they probably overfilled it by a quart. Which is not good. Please check it now if you don't believe me.
Why is it overfilled? Because they don't care.

Other bad part is going to the dealer exposes you to there good-better-best sales pitch of fuel injection cleaning and brake fluid changes and flux capacitor re-charges. Its all crap. They notate whatever they con you into on your toyota.com/owners log (which you can join and see) which is the first thing they look at when your car rolls in. if the service manager of the day see's you fell for that crap last time you were there oh boy lets try to fleece him some more!!! Your instantly pegged as an easy sell and here they come.

I do all my own oil changes (alot at Jiffy some at local mechanic) and don't buy any of that crap. No cons show up on my log but all my diy (you can add in your own diy on the toyota site too) so they leave me alone. I have had to bring my 07 in for a few recalls and they never bother me. I can see the upsell boards on the easels everywhere too.

You don't need any brake fluid service. You can have the fluid flushed when you have the brakes replaced at 150,000 miles. You don't need the fuel line flushed which is patently ridiculous. You don't need an injector cleaning or any other fuel service which is just a can of crap they put in the tank.

I would recommend getting the trans fluid chnaged every 50,000 miles though. That takes 4 quarts of WS fluid you can buy at the dealer parts counter. Any decent mechanic can do it hundreds of posts about it here including pictures.

Stop taking the car to the dealer for oil changes. Buy a 5 gallon jug of Mobil 1 5-30 at Walmart for $22.95. Buy the oem oil filter at the DPC for $5. Find a local mechanic to change it. Get a relationship with somebody other than the dealer as he can save you alot of money over the years compared to taking to the dealer.

 

10w30 would be wrong for Gen III 2010 and up.

 

You mean the 5-30 I quoted.

Imho 20 weight oil is too thin for the temperatures we see down here in the south.
Its brutal. I tried 0-20 in M1 in my 07 and the top end did not like it. Really noisey.
Maybe the G3 is a better motor.

And the 5 weight is fine for winter start up.

But I quoted the 5-30 as I have not seen 0-20 on sale at Walmart.

 

Try another dealer....and read your owners manual and familiarize yourself with what is REALLY recommended.

 

I feel sorry for you. Pls don't let the dealer do this to you anymore. They are taking your money unnecessarily. If you want to take good care of your car, read the required maintenance section of your manual and do that.

 

Thanks Edthefox5 for letting me know I can update my own service records on the Toyota website. I'm going to start doing that from now on to show proof work has been done even if I don't have receipts and its good if I ever sell the car.

 

Exactly.

 

actually, I could see that he might need a flush if the dealer was doing what our dealer did. We just bought a prius last week and the brake fluid was at L . they were going to top it off using a dirty funnel that they had used for something red (antifreeze?) and streaked with black (oil?). When I complained, they told me that they do this all the time. they use one funnel for everything. So wrong! We declined and are now going to probably be doing our own maintenance. Sigh!

 

That doesn't sounds right at all. Granted I haven't had to have my current Prius in for routine maintenance yet (but it's been in repeatedly for another problem I talk about in another thread), but each time I took my 2010 Prius IV in for 5k service it was nowhere near $200. I would ask the dealer for itemized lists of what each repair costs. It sounds to me like you're being ripped off.

 

My 5k is $15 for tire rotation. The inspection is free.

 

For $100 extra my dealer wanted to 'wash the engine' and 'adjust the brakes' of my v last time I took it for an oil change. I declined and next time I'm bringing my car to another Toyota dealer my sister recommended (she owns a Scion)

 

Maybe your title should read "Unscheduled Maintenance is expensive"?

Sounds like they have a litany of extras: check your maintenance schedule before going in, question the extras.

FWIW, even though it's not on Toyota's schedule, I like to get a brake fluid flush tri-yearly. That's coming from Honda, where it is the norm. But the fuel system cleaning is mostly BS, IMO. And it is not on Scheduled Maintenance.

 

tri yearly = once every 3 yrs right????

 

edthfox5, I know what you mean. I live in the south too and have added a quarter qt. of RP 5w20 synthetic with M1 0w20 to thicken it up just a bit in the summer (100+ temps). Zero and I mean O oil usage after 4 years and 66,000 miles. Maybe its just the synerlec in RP, I don't know.

 

Honda's need the brake fluid flushed every 3 years? Never heard of that.

On a Prius total waste of money. The hydraulic brakes are hardly used in normal driving. What do you think is happening to the fluid that has you so apprehensive?

So they'll inspect the front suspension for noises and road test it for free? Mine get's a "diagnostic fee" for anything they look at. $135 an hour minimum.

 

Which is why I go back to my dealer and you dislike yours.

 

I have had good service advisors, and terrible service advisors, both in the same dealership. On my last visit my regular advisor was off so I talked to a terrible one who told me my warranty would be void if I didn't let them do my 30k service. He also wanted to sell me brake flush, transmission flush, and fuel treatment crap. I complained to the head of the service department instead and he wrote him up!