Service from dealership, do all push exceeding manufacturer recommended service?
#1
Pit Crew
Thread Starter
Service from dealership, do all push exceeding manufacturer recommended service?
My lexus dealer pushes exceeding lexus requirements with fluid changes at 20k miles. Do all do so? Dealers here have a huge nut to Co en it feels like they think their freed and needs drive service not what the manufacturer says?, even davenport, a toyota/lexus independent service company do so. One infiniti dealer in north dallas suburbs does this same. I am not happy about it. But wonder if there is some evidence this added service makes sense?
#2
Lexus Fanatic
Im having a hard time understanding your post. I have no idea what you're asking. Especially this part: Dealers here have a huge nut to Co en it feels like they think their freed and needs drive service not what the manufacturer says?,
#3
I think he is saying they are up selling like they want to maximize their profits. Shocker, a car dealer trying to empty your wallet. I would keep the transmission fluid clean above and beyond the factory recommendation though. I just have a thing about dirty trans fluid.
#5
Pole Position
After reading this 20 times, I think understand what he's trying to say...he's saying that his Lexus dealer is saying he is 20,000 miles past the service interval of a given service/fluid, when in actuality going off of the owner's manual he is not. That sound right?
And if so I'd say yes...yes sometimes dealers kind of have their own set of service intervals. It's not uncommon. Take the tranny fluid for instance, Lexus calls it "lifetime", yet I've talked to Lexus techs that tell me to change it at 75,000 miles. And I know roadfrog says his owner's manual tells him to change it at 60,000 miles (he lives in Canada). In the Middle East I've read they change it every 50,000 miles, so it's not surprising that local dealers have their own "formula". Even oil changes are debatable - Lexus and Toyota are recommending 10,000 mile intervals on the newer vehicles, but when I talked to a Lexus shop foreman he said he wouldn't go past 5,000 miles on the older ones. Yet others on here have said they have officially extended all the 460's to 10,000 miles. I think what you're dealing with at your dealer is pretty normal, and you'd also run into the same thing with independants.
And if so I'd say yes...yes sometimes dealers kind of have their own set of service intervals. It's not uncommon. Take the tranny fluid for instance, Lexus calls it "lifetime", yet I've talked to Lexus techs that tell me to change it at 75,000 miles. And I know roadfrog says his owner's manual tells him to change it at 60,000 miles (he lives in Canada). In the Middle East I've read they change it every 50,000 miles, so it's not surprising that local dealers have their own "formula". Even oil changes are debatable - Lexus and Toyota are recommending 10,000 mile intervals on the newer vehicles, but when I talked to a Lexus shop foreman he said he wouldn't go past 5,000 miles on the older ones. Yet others on here have said they have officially extended all the 460's to 10,000 miles. I think what you're dealing with at your dealer is pretty normal, and you'd also run into the same thing with independants.
#6
My understanding is that he's indeed talking about up-selling - very common, as others have stated - and that the dealer is specifically calling for fluid changes (coolant, differential, transmission - not sure which at all) at 20k mile intervals. This sounds extreme, especially in the context of what our cars call for, but I'd say not unheard off. Not too long ago, my Acura dealer would recommend (among other things) tranny drain-and-refill service every 15k even though the requirement was 60k.
#7
Pit Crew
Most, if not all, dealers do this. So do a lot of service chains, etc. Not only is it an opportunity to get you to buy work of questionable benefit to you, at brutally inflated prices, it's an opportunity (for some) to bill you for work that was not even performed!
If you plan to keep the car for a couple hundred thousand miles, change the trans fluid. I'd pick an interval in the 40K-60K range. As for the rest, I'd stay with factory intervals.
Fleet management experts have said that changing trans fluid isn't worth doing. They say trans failure doesn't appear to occur much more often in neglected fleets, and savings from avoiding the cost of the service plus the cost of downtime will pay for the transmission failures that do occur. I appreciate their logic and research but I had a hard time going along.
The people who write the factory service manuals are no saints either. Remember when BMW started giving free service with new cars? Recommended maintenance intervals got a LOT farther apart at just about the same time....
If you plan to keep the car for a couple hundred thousand miles, change the trans fluid. I'd pick an interval in the 40K-60K range. As for the rest, I'd stay with factory intervals.
Fleet management experts have said that changing trans fluid isn't worth doing. They say trans failure doesn't appear to occur much more often in neglected fleets, and savings from avoiding the cost of the service plus the cost of downtime will pay for the transmission failures that do occur. I appreciate their logic and research but I had a hard time going along.
The people who write the factory service manuals are no saints either. Remember when BMW started giving free service with new cars? Recommended maintenance intervals got a LOT farther apart at just about the same time....
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#8
I agree the factory intervals for everything is good enough. The 5k interval for oil was when they were recommending non synthetic oil. Synthetic goes 10k easily. Even the lifetime tranny fluid or 75k interval will work probably for everyone. That fluid is black at 75k though and spending the 2 hundo every 30k to drain and fill 3 qts will keep it cleaner. Changing 3 qts at 75k will probably do very little to clean it up.
#9
Former Sponsor
My guess is he is saying that dealers push service early, beyond the recommendation(s) of manufacturers. Which yes they do. Their direction is to remove money from your wallet, not to make you satisfied. They'd recommend an oil change every 100 miles to little old grannies if they thought they could get away with it. I worked for OEM's, and in the latter half of my experience, was closely tied to dealers, and located at the manufacturing plant. There was a big mindset difference between what the plant personnel wanted a customer to experience, and what the dealers wanted the customers to experience. The OEM service recommendations are adequate.
Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) drives to satisfy their customers. Toyota Motor Sales muddies the water by trying to take all they can from you, dealer-by-dealer.
#12
I think he's referring to Other Recommended Services. When you go in for scheduled maintenance, there's always other recommended services that are suggested.
Here's an example from a local dealership I take my car to: http://www.emenusllc.com/index.php?g...e=80000M1&vin=
As you can see, they show what the Factory Service involves and costs and then also suggests Other Recommended Service. This is something most, if not all dealers have. They will try to upsell you on them but if you're a regular they typically never bother to ask, like in my case. They only ever asked on my first visit, but each consecutive visit after I've never been bothered.
Here's an example from a local dealership I take my car to: http://www.emenusllc.com/index.php?g...e=80000M1&vin=
As you can see, they show what the Factory Service involves and costs and then also suggests Other Recommended Service. This is something most, if not all dealers have. They will try to upsell you on them but if you're a regular they typically never bother to ask, like in my case. They only ever asked on my first visit, but each consecutive visit after I've never been bothered.
#13
I worked with Japanese at Toyota and Koreans at Hyundai who were horrible with English (better than I at their language though). So I've experienced this a lot ... maybe there's some tolerance built up in me from that. So, I'm cutting the OP some slack. Doesn't seem he's trying to morph the English language, for which I don't appreciate.
7milesout
#14
Pole Position
Most, if not all, dealers do this. So do a lot of service chains, etc. Not only is it an opportunity to get you to buy work of questionable benefit to you, at brutally inflated prices, it's an opportunity (for some) to bill you for work that was not even performed!
If you plan to keep the car for a couple hundred thousand miles, change the trans fluid. I'd pick an interval in the 40K-60K range. As for the rest, I'd stay with factory intervals.
Fleet management experts have said that changing trans fluid isn't worth doing. They say trans failure doesn't appear to occur much more often in neglected fleets, and savings from avoiding the cost of the service plus the cost of downtime will pay for the transmission failures that do occur. I appreciate their logic and research but I had a hard time going along.
The people who write the factory service manuals are no saints either. Remember when BMW started giving free service with new cars? Recommended maintenance intervals got a LOT farther apart at just about the same time....
If you plan to keep the car for a couple hundred thousand miles, change the trans fluid. I'd pick an interval in the 40K-60K range. As for the rest, I'd stay with factory intervals.
Fleet management experts have said that changing trans fluid isn't worth doing. They say trans failure doesn't appear to occur much more often in neglected fleets, and savings from avoiding the cost of the service plus the cost of downtime will pay for the transmission failures that do occur. I appreciate their logic and research but I had a hard time going along.
The people who write the factory service manuals are no saints either. Remember when BMW started giving free service with new cars? Recommended maintenance intervals got a LOT farther apart at just about the same time....
All that maintenance was designed for one thing...getting the vehicle to 100,000 miles as inexpensively as possible.
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