Toyota Canada's Online-Only Maintenance Schedules, this is progress?

Yep, glad you started a thread based on our conversation elsewhere.

It really is ridiculous.

I had planned to take the car to the dealership for at least as long as the basic warranty was active, since it covers so many things just so I can't be hit with a "not maintained/no records" moment for the 3 years/60k. And really, the cost isn't *that* much relative to what I can afford (for as long as I don't need to pay additional labour and parts for repairs at dealership rate out of warranty). But I don't exactly want to be taking it to them for every fluid change and km based maintenance for things that are easy to do yourself long term.

So knowing when to change fluids and spark plugs would be nice. I don't want to rely on visual inspection alone since that locks you into what they say when they say it.

Realistically though, with so much of it being "inspect" I can just... do all of it myself with a flashlight and a set of calipers to measure the brake pads if I really wanted to be anal.

I did consider the advice of another user to just get a super short term TIS subscription to simply check and download whatever they have for this specifically though, I assume the US based schedule would be the same and maybe someone's got that easily on hand too.

 

Fun fact, as I checked when on my lunch break - the US maintenance guide (https://techinfo.toyota.com/techInfoPortal/resources/jsp/siviewer/index.jsp?href=omms-s/T-MMS-24PriusPrime/xhtml/T-MMS-24PriusPrime.html&locale=en&openSource=TechinfoPrelogin) also does not have mileage or age listed for fluids other than oil.

Spark plugs are 120k miles/144 months

Everything but oil is based on inspection which is not especially clear. I guess there's colour and or test strip or something to check those?

 

I guess relying on the summary tables is a bad idea... when it should be a good one.

I'll go through page by page and figure something out this weekend then. I stopped doing that when I saw the page that said to do oil every 5k miles and 6 months... knowing that the oil and filter change is 10k/12 elsewhere in the same booklet (like in the summaries at the end).

of note: I did forget brake fluid is in the summary table when making the post, I had really meant "beyond what is in the Canadian list" - since the Canadian booklet has brake fluid change included too. But I don't think spark plugs in the back page tables are considered fluids, so I don't think that was contradictory.

Ultimately - what should be easy to use summary type table/sheet - similar to what you posted from your son's car - is not *that* different from what the Canadian site offers which is very unfortunate.

 

Sorry. I found the info in the US one.

The other stuff is the same, mostly, in the summary section of the US maintenance manual.

I will need to go page by page to see if the US manual includes anything for coolant or transmission fluid changes beyond making the decision on inspection alone.

Otherwise, they're largely the same with the exception of the spark plug info being extra in the US one.

Sorry if I wasn't clear

 

The US document I linked above doesn't include brake fluid intervals - it only says to inspect and then decide.

So I guess we can default to every 3 years as per Canadian guide.

Automatic Transmission fluid is at 6 years/60k miles/96k km (but only if "special operating conditions" - Driving while towing, using a car-top carrier, or heavy vehicle loading)

Inverter coolant is at 10 years/100k miles/160k kilometres

The spark plugs are at 12 years/120k miles/190k kilometres

I personally probably will just change the ATF regardless of the special operating conditions or not. I can't imagine how not doing any of those things suddenly means the ATF lives forever barring "inspection", which would be nice to know how that's done. Is it tested for contaminants? Very curious on that one in particular. Because the US guide has the flipside of no brake fluid rules other than inspection too.

Side question: do we need to take the car to the dealer for the service 1/2/3 stuff to maintain warranty? Because honestly, service 1 is a complete waste with nothing done for it. I can understand a once a year inspection of a car, but the prices for the mid year that doesn't even change oil seems like a waste of time and money.

Maybe if I didn't use winter tires, rotating the tires would make sense. But they spend at most 8 months at a time as all seasons, and then get naturally rotated the following year anyway. Same with the winter tires. It's not like I'm particularly stressed about rotating them 2 or 3 months into their 7 or 8 month use cycle. Insurance needs winters on from December through March anyway and I normally swap them in November because of early snows in Ottawa.

 

Normal use could mean the ATF doesn't approach the temperatures that break it down. Then there isn't any paths for outside contaminants to get into it like with motor oil. With other 'lifetime' ATF cars, I did a pan drop and filter change around 100k miles. I plan on doing a drain on the Subaru at 42k miles, but then they equipped the pan with a drain plug.

There are readily available testers of various types for brake fluid that report if there is too much water in it.