What Maintenance

Jerry,

Your Prius will trigger that message 4500 miles after a reset. and at 5k miles it will get more insistent. It is not for any particular item, but Toyota wants you to visit every 5k miles or 6 months (whichever comes earlier). You can look in the owner's manual to see what maintenance is scheduled for each visit.

JeffD

 

You need to look up in the (physical hardcopy) manual what maintenance is recommended at your mileage. Why this info isn't in the computer is beyond me, but that's the situation.

 

The US maintenance schedule is detailed in the Warranty and Maintenance Booklet, a slimmer book accompanying the Owner's Manual. If you don't have it you can download a pdf version. One source is the Toyota Tech Info website, in the "manuals" tab.

The schedule is laid out event-by-event, which makes it more-or-less impossible to discern the patterns. I've cobbled a spreadhsheet, column-and-line version, basically to show the pattern (attached).

 

have you never received the message in the past?

 

Take it to the dealer, I'm sure they'll be glad to tell you what it needs!

 

This. Here's the link for your year & model. The PDF versions are WAY more convenient than the paper ones that fill the entire glovebox
2018 Toyota Prius Manuals & Warranties | Toyota Owners

Actually, on further thought, it's pretty sad when they get away with it. I had a friend who was very gullible except when friends gave him good advice. He never listened to us. His one-year-old car needed wiper blades. He went to the dealer to get them. He came back with a new car because they told him the payments wouldn't be any higher than what he had been paying.

 

Hey, that happened to me twice! The first time, my then 3 years old 2017 PP needed a new set of tires soon, I went to a dealer. I traded my 2017 PP for a brand new 2020 PP and ended up costing me less than buying a set of new tires. BTW, the second time I did not go through the dealer but sold my car to Carvana and ended up making more money than what I had to spend on the new 2021PP later the same year.

But, on another end of the spectrum, I just took our 8-year-old SUV to a dealer for a safety software update recall. While I was there, I decided to go ahead and have them do the state safety inspection which was due soon. Well, that was the mistake... The dealer tried so hard to find something to upsell. They found a burned-out DRL bulb. The bulb costs $4, but the labor cost was $19. They also claimed the car had too much play on the swaybar links and would fail the inspection without fixing them. Replaced both front swaybar links for $300. I did not want to have failed inspection mark on my car, and they already had my car up on the lift and inspected when they told me those... Yep, they effectively took my car as a hostage to demand the ramsom. I ended up agreeing to get the services performed, but I will be complaining to the corporate headquarters about their business practice. end of rant...

 

Or the opposite: driving one of our venerable accords; all of a sudden with each brake application it sounded like it had a broken back. Took the wheel off the corner it seemed to be emanating from, and saw a a radial crack in the brake rotor.

I made an appointment at our nearby dealership, explained the issue, dropped it off. An hour or so later got a call: "You're car's ready; we're just giving it a wash. There was no problem with the brakes". For a second or two I believed them, was "relieved", lol.

I contacted the service manager, a really bright guy (the only one that ever got involved, helping customers, didn't last long there). They got on it...

Sad but true: Toyota Canada, with the advent of 4th gen Prius, offers NO paper or pdf summary of the maintenance schedule. The only option is to go to Toyota Canada website, plug in your miles or months, and it'll tell you what's needed, in a very cryptic "service A" or "service B" format, which you then have to chase down, see what they entail. Nuts!

I think that's the way Toyota is in Britain, for some years now?

Interesting read, Canadian Toyota Owner's website, just trying to figure out what the hell the oil change interval is, from what Toyota tells them:

Scheduled maintenance Canada VS USA... why so different?! | Toyota Nation Forum

 

Wait... so, there was nothing wrong with the brake??? Or, the dealer just didn't find that obvious radial crack on the rotor??? I'm confused.

 

The brake rotor was toast. Customer led them by the nose to the problem, and they still couldn't see it.

 

SCARY!!!.... So are the car jockeys and mechanics all wearing ear plugs or ear muffs. I would think that would be a obvious problem to find, verify, and diagnose. If this happened to me; I would be talking to the service manager and dealership owner. Massive liability issue; telling a customer that their brakes are OK - when they're obviously not.

 

You can lead a horse to water, but...

 

To the OP:
The "Maintenance Required" will come on around 4500 miles when first starting the car, then it will go off. At 5000 miles it will stay on. Basically you should rotate your tires every 5K and reset the light. You can delay an oil change until 10,000 miles, although most of us here on PC do it sooner.

 

Yeah, most likely they never even took a look at it. This is why I never trust them to do their 20-or-whatever-point free inspection.

 

Golly! I'm not sure what we charge for replacing links, but I've done it a time or two. Once it's on the hoist where you can see that they are bad, it takes about two minutes each.

Oh wow!!!

 

Of course, with my little DIY experience, I wouldn't have known if they were bad nor would I have known what the swaybar links looked like and where I would find them. But the charges of ~$300 were for $201.88 parts (OEM ROD-ASSY CONNECTING, STABILIZER R and L, and 4 Nut) and $90.00 Labor, and $15.39 Misc Charges. Yep, I checked the parts online after the fact and found out that they marked up their price above MSRP.

 

They sure did! Here's what was at the top of my Google search just now.

 

It was not for Prius. It was for our 2014 Pathfinder Hybrid. Brought in for a free safety recall software update. The swaybar link parts MSRP are $78.33 and $68.50. That is more than 30% markup. Oh, yes, this must be the dealer's "market adjustment". LOL

 

and a few more things you dont need.