60K Service by Dealer or Independent Mechanic?

[eric81]

Ok. I am not just saying this because I work for Toyota, because I don't see a penny if you get your vehicle serviced, but if you do your maintenance at the dealer, several very important things happen.

First- Your car gets serviced and checked by a CERTIFIED Toyota mechanic, who knows the most about your car. Anyone can check to see if there is fluid in the tranny, but a dealership checks the consistancy of the fluid to make sure it is still good, and nothing is grinding or anything like that.

Second- The dealer HAS to report all services to CARFAX, helping ensure your cars higher resale value. If you do trade it in and have had it serviced by Toyota on a regular basis, if it is still good on miles and years, you can get extra trade in value for having a certified used toyota.

Third- Toyota is part of the better business bearue. Is the guy down the block part of the BBB? Do yourself a favor and check the place and it's records with the BBB, you might be suprised.

[Kazimodo]

I guess it's the same everywhere .......
here on south shore Montreal the dealer told me not
to worry about the alternator light when it came on ,
it was just "flickering" ,not big bright light in dashboard,
so they told me the first 2007 Yaris had a bad regulator
in the alternator , that sends a wrong message to the
computer, and the computer interprets this as a bad
alternator and turns on the alternator light in your
dashboard , turn out to be true , 40,000 kms later I
still get that flickering alternator light sometimes , but the
bad part is that the moment the warranty ran out the
guy at the counter changed his story , same guy , all
of a sudden this was very bad , I had to change the part
for 250.00 plus labor , BASTARD, I asked around , and found
a guy who works for a B.B.Q. chicken store and they have
over 20 Yaris cars on the delivery at that restaurant and
some of their Yaris have gone for over 150,000 kms with
that flickering alternator light , so the hell with that dealer
he is not getting one cent of my money , EVER, if I really want
to get a genuine Toyota part i go the extra mile and go to another
dealer .
Writing about this to Toyota Canada did not help at all ,
they gave me the bogus excuse that ;I made my own oil changes ,
so that way ,the dealer could not do a follow up on the
alternator light "event".... bull s?%#t , the dealer would have said
same as before .
So I do everything myself , get a piece of
""carton "", slide under the car and just look around , a busted
"BOOT" will grease up the parts around it , the leaks you can
notice , the green spot on the battery is obvious, the brake fluid
goes to the galipers ,and rear brake cilinders , when you know
your brakes are almost finished, overfilling your master cilinder
will not give you more brake pads , it is all easy stuff , we paid
the big price for a car that is proven reliable , why waste more
for nothing , the more you do yourself , the more you will like
your car , for the fact that it is not putting in the poor house.
why pay 200.00 for some guy tojust look at parts of your car
when you have eyes,

[SilverGlow]

Originally Posted by bronsin

Really about 90% of the "maintenance" consists of rotating the tires (putting the fronts on the rear and the rears on the fronts) and an oil change. After 30k miles you can change the air filter. After 60k the coolant.

Originally Posted by eric81

Ok. I am not just saying this because I work for Toyota, because I don't see a penny if you get your vehicle serviced, but if you do your maintenance at the dealer, several very important things happen.

First- Your car gets serviced and checked by a CERTIFIED Toyota mechanic, who knows the most about your car. Anyone can check to see if there is fluid in the tranny, but a dealership checks the consistancy of the fluid to make sure it is still good, and nothing is grinding or anything like that.

Second- The dealer HAS to report all services to CARFAX, helping ensure your cars higher resale value. If you do trade it in and have had it serviced by Toyota on a regular basis, if it is still good on miles and years, you can get extra trade in value for having a certified used toyota.

Third- Toyota is part of the better business bearue. Is the guy down the block part of the BBB? Do yourself a favor and check the place and it's records with the BBB, you might be suprised.

You have provide very lame reasons to use a Dealership.

Very lame.

One does not have to be a "certified" Toyota machanic to change the oil and rotate the tires...because for the first 100,000 miles that is mostly all our cars need.

Why would I want to use them and for the purposes you wrote, and OVER PAY 25% to 300% for the service?

No, dealerships are mostly Stealerships and they are big liars to the public.

The ONLY reason to use a Stealership is for getting warranty work done, and only idiots use Stealerships for everything else.