Recommended maintenance schedule vs. coupons

Toyota only requires maintenance (mostly oil changes) every 5K. Many dealers try to push 3K intervals for oil, which is unneccesary.

As for the pre-paid maintenance, compare what it covers to what is required in your maintenance schedule handbook that came with the car. Most of what is shown are inspections, which many are done during dealer oil changes anyway.

At 30K, the air filters (ICE and cabin) are supposed to be changed.
at 100K, coolants and sparkplugs are to be changed.
You might want to change the WATF at 60K, but it is only sheduled to be checked at that interval. It is used under same conditions as manual transmissions; there are no valves and torque converter like on a standard AT.

Summary: just like the maintenance schedule packages dealers try to sell you for different intervals, the pre-paid maintenance coupons are a waste of money, esp on the Prius.

 

Dan said it all LOL. But I'd check the ICE air filter every 15,000 mi. at least mine seems to get dirty pretty rapidly. I usually change mine at 15k.

 

Which brings up questions from me.

I cannot go by mileage for maintenance. I need to go by months or years.

Example.

My last car (the Saturn I'm still trying to sell) has 49,450 miles on it. It's 9 years old.

So if I wait until the 5,000 mile mark for an oil change, that's once a year.

Is once a year okay for oil changes? We're talking lots of city driving here. Yes, I don't work very far from home and don't go out a lot. My parents are less than 10 miles away. My sister is 30 miles away but I don't visit her that often. I do long distance ( 200 mile round trip) maybe once or twice a year.

And if I'm waiting until 30,000 miles for air filter changes....that's about the 7 year mark.

I'll never own this car long enough to put 100,000 miles on it.

So what do I do about maintenance? I need some sort of way to translate the mileage suggestions into "my miles".

 

I find myself in the rare situation of disagreeing with Dan. I'd modify his statement to, "the pre-paid maintenance plan can be a waste of money -- or not. Depends."

When I was considering the pre-paid maintenance plan, I looked at how much a 5K checkup was going to cost me. Turns out, locally, I'll save about $250 using the coupons, rather than paying for the regular checkups out of pocket.

However, I noticed cheaper prices for checkups in other cities, where the pre-paid maintenance plan would not save you money. Depends on the local dealerships, and what the market will bear, apparently.

Second, I always take my car in for the schedule checkups. Why? I did for my Civic, and I ended up keeping it 17 years. The regular checkups may have had something to do with that -- or not. Call it peace of mind.

Third, I plan to keep my Prius for at least 10 years, if possible. One of the reasons I bought the car was Toyota reliability; my experience with Toyotas (and Hondas) is if you take care of them, they'll last a long time.

For someone who changes their oil themselves, feels no need to do the 5K inspections, or lives in someplace where the going rate for inspections is cheaper than the coupons, the prepaid maintenance doesn't make sense.

 

Re: Which brings up questions from me.

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You're right, of course. Those of us who drive 12,000+ miles a year can go by miles. I was looking at the Prius' Maintenance book (you read all those books, right?) and at least for a Prius they say 5,000 miles OR six months. You should go by the six-month schedule.

 

Warranty requires oil changes 5K or 6mo.

Think to look at is what the maintenance entails. Much of what they list is NOT required for a Prius, others are already done during a dealer oil change.

 

I agree with bookrats as well. Especially with a new car I like to go to the dealer for the maintenance while the car is under the manufacturer warranty. Anything they find is usually covered under the warranty and they are happy to fix it because I won't complain since it's not going to cost me anything. Given that I drive 16k+ miles per year and comparing the prices the dealer charges for the routine maintenance, I figure on saving upwards of $300 by using the prepaid plan over the next three years.