PSA: Toyota Scheduled Maintenance vs. "Toyota" Scheduled Maintenance

Hey all, I've been doing my own service on my 4Runner for the past 5ish years. I got my free services and then took over when I had to pay at the dealership. Just rolled over to 90k and wanted to get some services done that I'm not interested in doing myself now that I'm temporarily without a garage.

-Transfer Case Oil Change
-Differential Oil Change
-Transmission Fluid Change
-Spark Plugs
-Oil and Filter Change

I'm very familiar with what Toyota suggests at 30k, 60k, etc.

What I have noticed is dealerships make up their own scheduled maintenance. The dealership I went to offered their 90k service (I'm at 92k). I was going to ok it until I saw they wanted $549 and it included an alignment and other wackiness.

I give all this detail to say make sure you're familiar with what Toyota Corporate suggests vs what your local upselling dealership offers. Many times it looks like corporate pamphlets, looks official, but its just the dealership adding random services to get a little more sheckles out of you. If unfamiliar with what you need, bring your maintenance manual with you and tell the service advisor you want exactly those services outlined by Toyota Corporate.

Also, INB4 dealerships are evil and do terrible work

 

So did you find a shop to do the services you wanted?

 

No I had the dealership do the work, however the service advisor and I went line item by line item with parts and labor costs to ensure I was only paying for what I asked for and not their extra (bullshit upsell) services.

 

Dealers are evil and do terrible work. Especially with regard to warranty.

However, oddly enough, when the work has nothing to do with warranty, and money is coming out of your pocket, they can be reasonable options. So long as you are asking foru specific work to be done, like the line by line example above.

I base this on two seperate experiences. One was a Honda dealer that replaced a transmission on an Accord. That was easy peasy. Price was reasonable, work was done quickly (one day to next), and I didn’t have to return to deal with any installation problems.

The second was a rear brake disc/pad replacement on a Sienna. Done right, quick, and no drama or surprises.

Neither of these situations had any diagnostic work involved. So it wasn't a situation where I was depending on them to tell me what they wanted to do.