Just bought a used Prius this passed Sunday with 80K on the clock and so its due for a 20K full service. I have contacted numerous $tealers around my locality and prices have ranged from £278 all the way up to £422. What is it that they are doing which costs so much? Are these prices about normal?
Sounds about right for a main dealer service and the 20k one is the big one. Immediately you have 20% vat Then the high dealer hourly rate and other costings. I'd still stick with my other post where I suggested biting the bullet on the main service for peace of mind and then consider doing it yourself thereafter. You will find our American friends will be alarmed at the high cost we pay for servicing
Ask them. There can be a gulf between Toyota spec'd. maintenance and dealership interpretation of same. Make sure you're comparing apples/apples, and avoid the dealers that keep throwing in their own "oranges".
A shocking price (equivalent to US$450), that provides substantial financial incentive to DIY. The major required items are to replace the engine oil/oil filter and the air filters periodically. Then look under the car for problems in the suspension, brakes, exhaust, and drivetrain. That is about it, unless a problem is uncovered.
you are calling this 'the 20K service' but, it has 80K on it? i would look at your owners manual for toyota recommendations and ask the dealer what they are specifically going to do. there are a few things some of the experts here recommend that toyota does not. you may want to do some searching and consider them. rae vynn just had a service for $475. which had several very specific things done and covered all the important ones. all the best!
Thanks Everyone! Seems I will have to bite the bullet then , and hopefully save by doing the future ones myself - Don't worry I'll be repeating this to myself all the way down to the store lol.
If you can gear up to do the future services yourself, why not do the immediate service now and save yourself much of the £278 expenditure?
That certainly is an option, I just wanted them to give everything a sort of once over just to make sure there aren't any major problems. The car does have a full dealer service history but I want to be on the safe side in terms of all the 'inspect' items on the service list. Do they do these 'inspect' checks in the interim service?
One school of thought says that regardless of whether you pay for items to be inspected or not, they will be inspected anyway because that represents a potential upsell if a problem is found. Another school would say no, the tech will ignore anything which is not written on the repair order. Considering your car is 3-4 years old with 80K miles logged, if you are not comfortable doing the various inspections yourself then it might be worthwhile to have that done for you.
I have collected a bunch of photos for anyone who is interested in doing visual inspections him/herself: http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-...ting/74434-diy-visual-inspection-dummies.html
