After my last oil change.. my dealer handed me a little pamphlet saying to look at the 60,000 mile maintence that is recommended when I come in for service next time (I am at 58K now). It comes to about $700!! I compared it to the scheduled maintence booklet that came with the owners manual.. and half the stuff is not recommended yet. For instance.. the dealer wants to change the brake pads, change the coolant (although there is no mention of the inverter coolant etc.. But toyota just says to change the air filter, and cabin filter.. and inspect everything else. The coolant is supposed to be done at 100,000 and the brakes have good life still in them. What has everyone else done at this interval? :huh: .. I do alot of highway miles.. so the ICE is constantly running.. so I want to make sure this car lasts 200-250K miles. Thoughts? Scott
I'm not sure of the specifics of what you want vs. what you don't want, but I do know that dealers often try to overcharge on these standard maitenance things. Specifically, they probably have a "standard 60K maitenance," that is not customized to the Prius, so there are probably a lot of things on there that you don't need. A lot of folks will say, "Just get what's in the booklet," but there may be additional things that you want to do at 60K (i.e. maybe changing the coolant early isn't such a bad idea if you're doing mostly highway miles). We just went in for our 5K mile maitenance; when I was calling them up for an appointment, they said it would be $72 (and this is, actually, excluding the cost of the oil change since we got free oil changes for the first year thrown in when we bought the car). I asked what that included, and was told a long laundry list of things including rear brake tightening, oil additive, "road test", 57-point check (or whatever), etc, etc, etc. I basically said, "OK. I don't want to pay that much" and was immediately offered the $25 package that included the things in the booklet. I still think I was overcharged, but at least it wasn't quite as bad.
what betelgeuse said above. It's probably a standardized menu that they have in the computer and just assumed people, on average, wear their brakes out at 60,000 miles (although ours went out at 70,000 kms but mostly city driving). Just tell them what you want and what you don't. I mean if you have nearly new brakes, what's the point of changing them? It's a waste of money and a waste of resources. Also, can someone give me insight on the coolant issue. It says 160,000kms (100,000 mile) long-life coolant on the sticker under the hood but some say to have the coolant changed earlier? why?
Just follow the owners manual schedule on what to do. And you'll be fine. Dealers try to stick you with stuff you don't need. They have to increase their customer revenues per customer visit. They've gotta make some profit and stay in business. The last Toyota that I sold had 326,000 miles in it and only when it has problems- which was very rarely- does it ever get to see the dealer. The dealer would have filed bankruptcy if every Toyota owner in my area is like me.
Maintenance At 60K with mostly highway driving, I don't think you will need new brake pads yet. It all depends on how you treated your brakes 2 years ago. I know from my previous vehicle (minivan) my brakes lasted for 11 years at 163K. Just have is inspected for free at your local NTB shop...or if Toyota will do it ... make sure it is free of charge. As for your coolant, if I am not mistaken these coolants can now last longer than usual. I can understand why the dealer wants your coolant replaced after 2 years. Perhaps this may be a good advice for it may lengthen the life of your water pump. Its your call. FWIW, I just noticed that this message was from last year. By this time you should be well over 60K.
