“I also had never heard of a brake fluid flush and fill as scheduled maintenance until I joined this forum.”
I can’t speak for other makes, but for at least the past 10 years, Subaru’s factory maintenance schedule has called for a brake fluid change every 30k miles.
And VW’s called for one every 2 years.
the mileage requirement seems odd to me. Does Subaru at least also specify a year, and “whichever comes first?”
I have one relative who has 7k miles on her 2014 vehicle. She drives 2 or 3 miles once a week most of the time. If she waited till 30k miles I’d probably be retired before her first fluid change.
Subaru says replace brake fluid at 30k/30mo.
All the subaru intervals are of the form “xx thousand miles or xx months whichever comes first”.
@Shadowfax: she is probably due for a lot of service. Depending on when she purchased the car, she could be as much as 2 1/2 years or 30 months, equivalent to 30k miles. She iw WAY overdue for oil change, for example.
My Toyota manual does not call for a brake fluid flush, but when the brakes are done I would have them change the fluid at the same time.
Prior to ABS on cars, very few owners changed the fluid. With ABS I would do it every 50,000 miles or at every brake job.
@BillRussell Oh, I keep her on track. She’s getting the services based on time, which means she gets like, 2,000 miles max out of an oil change before she’s in for another. She doesn’t mind because for some reason the dealership does it for free and treats her like royalty while she’s there, so she’s always up for an oil change. Good thing, too, since that’s about the only time it gets driven long enough to come up to temperature.
My Kia’s coolant change was 60,000/60 months so I had it done at 60 months/ 30,000 miles. $60 seemed quite reasonable.
$60 for a coolant change is a very reasonable price. You got a good deal. Just the coolant itself is quite expensive.
@strock21
Neither have I. When I did brake jobs myself, I would change the fluid. The fluid is better now, why should we do it early as common maintenance.
Wheel alignments when there is no obvious problem ?
It 's been 30 years since I had one that didn’t involve an accident. Some cars may be more prone to them and maybe I’m lucky. I guess right and don’t buy cars that need them. Of course, I only drive cars with the biggest diameter, highest profile tires which has a lot to do with pot hole damage.
I go back to the dealer so much now, I gave my compressor to my nighbor to keep in his garage. I don’t save money doing service my self because they do much for free and they have the lift.
They have wifi in the waiting room and I can watch movies and bug every one here. Why do anymore work myself when it’s so freqk’n hard to get rid of waste oils. I do the small engines and my tractor…no more.
And, no freak’n overpriced 30k services.
You have the nerve to call me silly . . . ?
tons of missing details
constantly changing the story, and then DENYING it
Meaningless “updates”
Rambling on and on and on, telling the same stories day after day after day
Yeah, sure I’m the silly one . . . if you want to believe that, fine. Go pat yourself on the back
Give yourself a gold star while you’re at it
You know what . . . here you go 
If you want to see silly, look in the mirror
If anybody wants to flag me, fine. But we all know lots of us are getting tired of this guy
I apologize if this didn’t sound very nice. But I can’t think of a nice way to say what NEEDED to be said. I’ve tried to keep my mouth shut, but eventually I need to speak up
If I was truly a jerk, I would have flagged a lot of the posts as spam or troll, but I’m not a total jerk
And it wouldn’t really have been incorrect if I had done so
@ok4450 “Performing repairs for free or insisting that all inspections should be free is outside the realm of sanity; way, way outside.”
Just ask. I have been doing this for twenty plus years. I start negotiating early when I buy the car and bring it in for early maintence. Just ask your service manager what their mechanics always check on every oil change, you would be surprised. Heck, they do the few grease fittings on my trucks during oil changes…no charge.
Talk to ANY of the mechanics. They all say the same thing in every service department, including independents…they look for repairs. It’s a no brainier. I don’t get the problem. Yes, there may be a hard to reach area that needs something special, but normally, every check that was listed, you don’t have to pay for.
You have to “stroke” the dealership. I even stop into the general manager’s office once in a while and made sure, with out going into specifics, how please I was with their service department’s flexibility.
We don’t charge customers for free inspections and there is no negotiating necessary. If a customer wants only an inspection there is normally a fee and Express lubes get a shorter inspection
There is a list of inspection items included with each service; 5K, 10K, 15K etc. That is why we charge more for the service than the lube shops. It is a complete service, not just an oil change.
When I think about cars of the late 1940s through the 1960s, I would bet that, when adjusted for inflation, cars today take less bite out of the wallet. Oil was changed at 1000_or 2000_mile intervals. A,chassis lube usually went along with the oil change. New spark plugs and distributor points were called for every 10,000’miles. Tire life has more than doubled… In this framework, I don’t see a,$700 charge for scheduled service as being outlandish…