Annual Maintenenace Cost

Today i did some annual maintenance of my Toyota Corolla CE 2001 with 68 K mileage25pt. inspection

 

oil change & filter

Lubricate chasis

Inspect & adjust Brakes

Replace air filter, Fuel Filter

Replace Spark plugs

Cooling System Service & Automatic Transmission Service

Induction Service & Certified Road Test

Replace Rear brake shows & Adjust Systen

Resurface rear drums

This costed me 452$. Can anybody tell me are these reasonable charges???

$425 - NO. A little on the high side but it also depends on your area. In comparision - my dealership charges about $600 for the same service you have detailed here. Unfortunantely, less than hailf are actually neccessary or required, the rest is charged as "labor" or other - extra money for the dealership.

 

Couple of things I would like to point out - some items on the vehicle do not need to be serviced, especially with the miles you have on the vehicle. I'll put my comments in-line to each item.

25pt. inspection - waste of time, pure profit for dealership, they should itemized exactly which 25 points they were looking at.

oil change & filter - a good thing to do, should be no more than $20-$30 (should be itemized on the work order)

Lubricate chasis - scam / doubtful, our generation of Corolla has NO greasable fitting anywhere on the suspension (fully sealed from the manufacturer)

Inspect & adjust Brakes - same thing as inspection, but a little more important

Replace air filter, Fuel Filter - air filter OK, fuel filter does NOT need to be replaced under normal circumstances. I hope that you asked for your old parts back - as they have to remove the backseat to get at the fuel filter. Might be some frivolous charges tacked on here.

Replace Spark plugs - your car does NOT need sparkplugs at this time - OEM Iridium plugs are good up to 120K miles. Even worse case scenario, pretty hard to burn them up faster unless there was some serious issues with the ignition system or engine.

Cooling System Service & Automatic Transmission Service - both are good to have at this point, but it depends on how the service was itemized. Should be simple drain and refill for both - anywhere it says "flush", would be unnecessary work/labor for this mileage.

Induction Service & Certified Road Test - depends on what was serviced: did they clean the throttle body? clean the intake manifold? Changing the air filter can be counted as induction service for some. Road test = make sure they didn't screw up something. Might be some frivolous charges tacked on here.

Replace Rear brake shows & Adjust Systen - I'd like to see the work order on this. Rear brakes on a FWD car last a significantly long time, since most of the work is done by the front brakes. I'd be quite surprised if the rear shoes were worn at this point, parking brake adjustment may be needed if you do not use your parking brake on a regular basis (self-adjusting system).

Resurface rear drums - Again, I'd like to see the work order on this. I've not seen ONE case where they had to cut the rear drums at this low mileage. Even in a case where the owner accidentally drove with the parking brake engaged long enough to start trailing a smoke screen. Shoes were cooked but the drums were still OK. Some dealerships consider "freshening" the drums with a piece of sandpaper a resurfacing job - frivolous charges tacked on here.

All in all - I'd say they probably did about $150 amount of "actual" work on the car - I'd double check the work order and total every line item to make sure they didn't tag anything else on, like fuel system service (add a can of fuel injector cleaner to the tank - charge you about $50 - happened to my folks).

As for the appropriate amount of service needed - follow the links on the Toyota main website to Owner services and follow the links to Scheduled maintenance. Listed below are what is necessary for a 2001 Corolla with 60K miles / 48 months

2001 Corolla

60,000 Miles - 48 Months

- Replace engine oil and oil filter

- Replace engine air filter

- Replace engine coolant

- Rotate tires

Inspect the following: (NOTE: most of these are probably covered under their "25 point inspection")

Ball joints and dust covers

Brake lines and hoses

Brake linings/drums and brake pads/discs

Differential oil

Drive belts

Drive shaft boots

Engine valve clearance

Exhaust pipes and mountings

Fuel lines and connections, fuel tank band and fuel tank vapor vent system hoses

Fuel tank cap gasket

Steering gear box

Steering linkage and boots

Transmission fluid or oil

Additional Maintenance Items for Special Operating Conditions:

Driving on Rough, Muddy or Snow-Melted Roads

- Inspect nuts and bolts on chassis and body

Towing a Trailer or Using a Camper or Car-Top Carrier

- Inspect nuts and bolts on chassis and body

- Replace automatic transmission fluid

- Replace differential oil

- Replace manual transmission oil

BASICALLY - they only should have done:

- Replace engine oil and oil filter

- Replace engine air filter

- Replace engine coolant

- Rotate tires

THAT IS IT. Transmission service is a good idea, but not 100% necessary unless you fall under the Special Operating Conditions. Even so, it is a just a simple drain and refill. $20 in Toyota brand ATF and $1 for the drain bolt gasket.

Everyone gets burned at least once. Only way to protect yourself from getting beat up like this is to educate yourself about the car. No real shortcuts around it. Learn about your car - lots of resources to choose from. Using that pool of knowledge, ping on a few mechanics - should be very obvious by this time, which ones are likely to screw you on a repair.

Things that you should ask for - work orders that are itemized, each component broken down to the individual parts. Labor, parts, chemicals, etc. If repairing any hard component on the car - as for the old parts in return. They are your parts - you should be able to take them with you. A good mechanic would let you have them - save items like chemicals or parts needed for core returns. Be sure to do this before the job is even started - tends to weed out the shady ones really quickly.

Unfortunantly, there is no easy answer to this issue - if it was easy to find good mechanics, you would never read topics like, "I got screwed by my mechanic..."

Good Luck and ask lots of questions.