2013 Prius Minimalist Maintenance Schedule

Replacing the engine air filter is easier than replacing the cabin air filter and is shown in this video.

Since you're going to have the oil change done somewhere, ask them what other visual inspections are included in the price. Many places check most of this stuff as part of the oil change service.

They will also top off all fluids, usually for a nominal extra fee. While you can do that yourself, you'd have to buy a container of each fluid and store the excess, so it's easier for some to just let them do it and pay for the service.

Unless I was having a problem starting the car, I've never had the battery serviced or electrical system checked unless it was included with the oil change service.

 

i think that is a very good service schedule. shouldn't be more than $150. make sure they pull all four wheels and lube the brake slider pins. then they can rotate the tyres at the same time. not sure about the battery service, which battery?

 

examine tyres for damage and wear, what the heck can you 'check and adjust'?

 

Air pressure, wheel alignment, etc.

 

It looks like a reasonable list but it's not for a Gen 3 Prius.
e.g
Battery service? What serviceable battery?
Inspect and adjust drive belts? What drivebelts?

I would want to know exactly what they were proposing to do on my car and how much they proposed to charge

 

That's a tall order. If you're cheap, and also insist on doing nothing yourself. I would at the least drag yourself of the couch and check the filter (two) condition. And learn about your car, it's maintenance. A sloth and his money are soon parted, lol.

You're ideas as to what's supposed to happen seem to be coming from a dealership. Maybe the crack the booklets that came with the car, see what Toyota says? Still, don't expect the answers to jump of the pages, the Canadian documentation of maintenance schedule is a disaster. I've summarized it here, and it is different than the US.

2010 Prius Maintenance Schedule (Canadian) | PriusChat

The above is just the Toyota line, and per my 2010. Since, in later model years, they've added periodic brake fluid changes, which I think are a good idea. What they haven't added is Transaxle Fluid change, which is a very good idea.

 

The filters, cabin and engine, are in particular a good thing to take care of yourself. We're past 48000 km, and I believe Toyo's saying its mandatory to change the engine filter by now. If you leave it to the dealership they likely will, just abiding by the schedule.

There's also an interval to just check filter condition, which I've done. At every check I found the engine filter in particular looking pristine. So I've elected to leave it be for now.

The cabin filter has looked a bit grungy when I checked, I just hit it with air and reused for now.

Filter checks are a bit of a cash cow for dealerships; they'll charge for checking, replace filters prematurely (IMO), and the filter costs are very high for what it is.

Other things? The 12 volt battery you can do a rough assessment with a half-decent digital multimeter.

I wouldn't be too complacent with the brakes; they can last, otoh problems can crop up. Someone else mentioned the caliper pins: once in a longish while (very precise) it's worthwhile inspecting and relubing them. Pad thickness should be checked at tire rotation, in particular for uneven wear. And rotor appearance.

I made that spreadsheet layout virtually by necessity; the canadian schedule is a poor layout, lumps ALL Toyota vehicles into one description.

The U.S. schedule is at least service-by-service, and Prius specific, but spoon feeds, doesn't let you see the big picture, in a table. You can find PDFs of the US booklet, see what I mean.

Well, maybe you're not going to be doing your own oil changes any time soon, but good to see you're getting involved in your maintenance. Knowledge and understanding is the important thing, even when the pros are handling most of it.

 

mouse. no, they will tell you they've never heard of that before. read through the mouse/mice threads for tips on where to look for them, and how to prevent them from entering the car.

 

Use peppermint oil to prevent mice from entering... use tei-fu or wintergreen to help with the smell ... till Toyota decides to fix this ( or the nhtsa forces them to ) the only thing we can do is try to prevent mice by deterring them from entry ... peppermint has worked so far

 

I've been getting free tire rotations at Discount Tire. Hmm- maybe paying the dealer for the rotation along with the scheduled maintenance would help in terms of brake inspections? Otherwise, it seems the dealer just does a quick eyeball check for pads while the wheels are still on the car. Any thoughts?

 

Our dealership service manager suggested a thorough brake inspection something like every 2 years or 30,000 km, more frequently if you're driving up salted ski hills a lot. I guess the latter's not a factor in your area, lol.

My hunch is a serious eye-ball inspection yearly, and more in-depth tri-yearly or 30,000 miles is sufficient. The in-depth inspection should entail pulling the caliper off the disk, having a close look at the pads/shims and disk and lube of the caliper pins. Maybe also checking disk thickness and parallelism, in particular if there's any pulsing noted.

With the rear brakes with it's integrated parking brake mechanism, re-assembly is tricky: if the piston face is misaligned with the inner pad, you can actually mess things up, cause uneven pad contact, brake drag. Brake inspection can mess up perfectly fine brakes, lol. So you need to be choosy with your mechanics, make sure they're very familiar with 3rd gen Prius rear brakes.

Simple DIY would be to look at the brakes just through the rim openings occasionally. How do the disk look, and does the outer pad (at least) appear to have decent thickness still? The pad's backing plate is maybe 1/8" thick. Also, after a drive, immediately feel all 4 wheels (carefully): are any feeling extremely hot. Slightly warm is normal, and they should be uniform.

 

If you don't have documented service inspections and R&R, you can forget about the warranty or any after warranty help should you have a problem, at least that's what I found out the hard way from mine, where it wasn't taken to the dealer at all except for recall/TSB's. I don't understand why they have this attitude when the laws at least in the States allow you to take a vehicle anywhere for maintenance.