Dealer Recommends "Extra" Maintenance at 30000 Miles

What's "extra stuff"?

 

I wouldn't do more than Toyota recommends, and certainly not $330 more.

Regarding the cabin air filter, I replaced mine myself at 15K miles. Bought it from the dealer parts department, and it took 5 minutes to replace (instructions are in the owner's manual). The dealer will probably charge you $50 labor.

 

Dealer recommended service add-ons can range from effective preventive maintenance to useless. It's often tough to tell the difference, though. Fuel system cleaners aren't a bad idea and my independent domestic mechanic said they make sense about every 50K miles. However, I've found that the symptoms that indicate the need for fuel system cleaners - lack of power and a sticky throttle - seem to be minimized when running top-tier fuel.

 

I'd ask them to stick to the required maintenance. If fuel injector cleaning is about par for the sort of things they're pushing, IMO a polite-but-firm "no" is in order.

There's mixed opinions on injector cleaning. I've never done it on any of our cars, they survived. They typically hook up a bottle of solvent to your intake manifold, run the engine which in turn belches out a noxious cloud of toxins.

There are benefits to cleaing the throttle body periodically, and a sensor that's in there. But that's best done by hand. There's often some sort of exhaust gas recirc (I'm out of my depth) that can gum things up over time.

+1 on changing your own filters, it's not hard at all. OTOH, the labour charge might be nil for those items, see if you can find out.

 

It's never nil. It's almost always at least equivalent to the part being replaced. And even at $5 (grossly underestimating that), it would be too much in my book for simply popping out glove compartment and sliding in another filter. lol

They should be walking you through how to do it yourself and recommending you get the filter from their parts department if they really cared. But they'd rather take you to the cleaners to make a bigger profit.

 

Fuel injector cleaning is not necessary. I hold on to my cars for at least 150,000 miles without ever cleaning the injectors. Most fuels have cleaning additives. Once a year I pour a bottle of Techron in the tank which is just a precaution. Don't waste your money on injector cleaning. Not needed.

 

My dealer has service packages for each service interval, which they try to sell to me each time I go in for service. Each package has a nice printed sheet of paper describing all of the good things included. It is so comprehensive it includes service on parts not found on any Prius. When I point this out they say "Ah, yeah, well this sheet is used for all of the models and so there are a few extra things."

I always get my service a la carte.

Tom

 

If it is not in the owner's manual, don't do it. The only exception would be transaxle fluid change, which most here recommend on a schedule that is more aggressive than the manual for Gen II. I admit that I haven't followed any discussion on Gen III, though.

You should need an engine air filter no less frequently than every 30,000 miles, and a cabin air filter annually.

Avoid any/all milestone, prix fixe packages. The Prius is unique in several ways and so all service should be a la carte. Fuel injector cleaning is the biggest ripoff on the menu.

 

$330 on top of the manufacturer suggested maintenance which is covered under your plan? Thats thievery. A 30k mile service on a Prius shouldn't cost more than $330 in the first place, let alone $330 on top of the basic package.

If Toyota thought the fuel injectors would need to be cleaned...they would have put it in the manual. I've owned several Toyotas upwards of 200k miles with nothing but the manufacturer's suggested maintenance done and they've been great.

 

The 2 dealers that I frequent have become used to me coming in, with a printed list in large type stating what is needed. I change all the filters, what 5 minutes of work, bring in my own Synthetic Oil and filter, by the time I ride out the door all I am really paying for is labor on a oil change.
Like Tom, I have a pretty good idea what is and is not applicable to my car!
Ala Carte works just fine!!!
Just go in and stick to your guns. a firm NO usually works just fine.

 

Learn to do your own oil/filter changes. Take the car to a tire center to have the tires rotated, and the brakes inspected occasionally.

 

eace:Car dealers are like politicians: they are all crooks.eace:

 

Seilerts nailed it. Do what's in Toyota's Scheduled Maintenance Guide (*not* some dealer's guide) and maybe do the first ATF change early (at 50K, and simple a drain and fill, not a flush), and that's it. Anything else is simply making the dealer's boat payments for him.

If you use E10 fuel you're getting all the injector cleaner that the car ever needs.

The most common cause of a dirty throttle plate seems to be chronically overfilling the engine oil, so if you're checking the oil level after *every* oil change (you were already doing that anyway, right?) that won't happen.

Check out the detailed discussion in the classic thread
http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-...70-what-services-you-need-what-you-don-t.html