Honda Civic oil change and cabin filter change

I buy my Honda filters from Honda/Acura dealers on line, not Amazon. There are two or three that I have used in Arizona and Florida.

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You did NOT get scammed

Book time is probably .3hrs or so

Labor rate at a typical dealership is probably $125/hr or more

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You can buy a riding mower where you live? Even places like Lowes and Home Depot around here might only have 1 or 2. They’re all waiting on deliveries.

Yup!
If I wanted to buy one, they are lined-up in front of the local Lowe’s, looking like a car lot.

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The closest Lowes near me has 2. I was at a local small engine store to get parts for my lawn mower. They have a couple. All the Zero turn riders that were allotted this year are sold out (although none have arrived yet). And just like car the manufactures are tacking on $200 service fees.

Car lots are looking pretty sparse these days. Here’s what my local Hyundai dealer looks like:

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True
Perhaps it would be more accurate to state that it my local Lowe’s looks like a car lot from a couple of years ago.

Seems to me I mentioned according to “Chickanic” on youtube the warning of product supply this season. She has a small engine shop in Arkansas or someplace and talked about severe product shortages for parts, chain saws, carbs, filters, engines. Back orders for months. So she said plan ahead if you need something because if you need an engine or leaf blower, you will wait months to get it. Most anything with aluminum due to the shortage and exorbitant price increase of the product used to temper aluminum.

I tend to keep some things on hand anyway because if I have a problem, I want to fix it immediately and not have to hunt the parts down. So I stock gaskets, carb kits, belts, and keep the used parts just in case. I even have a spare carb for the snow blower. I have at least a years worth of air and cabin filters and two years worth of oil filters and oil. Food?

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About 15 years ago, I decided that I wanted to have an extra belt for my Craftsman snow blower on hand, so I went over to Sears to order one. Many weeks later, I got a phone message that it had finally arrived, so back to Sears I went, only to have the scatterbrained (and nasty) woman behind the parts counter fail to find it. She even claimed that there was no record of this transaction in their computer system–even though I had the transaction number.

So, I ordered the part again, and when I went back to pick it up several weeks later, there were–you guessed it–two belts waiting for me. Rather than argue with the nasty woman again, I paid for both and left.

This was–supposedly–before Sears began to sink into oblivion. I think I saw some early signs of their problems.

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Sounds like a good common-sense solution there to the cranky-salesperson problem VDC. I wonder how businesses can sometimes seem to not know even very basic stuff. Like an auto parts employee who can’t tell the difference between 1 in inner diameter tubing compared to 1/16 " . “If it’s on the 1” shelf, then it’s 1"!!!" 
 lol 
 I suppose everyone here has a story where a business staffer doesn’t seem to understand much about that business.

When we bought the car before last at delivery I asked the salesperson if the new one took the same power steering fluid as the old one since I had an unopened bottle on the shelf. He wasn’t sure. Come to find out it had electric power steering. No fluid needed or possible. So I’ll ask what is in stock or the price but after that better do my own research.

Went by a Honda dealer, lot completely empty except for a lot of HR-Vs. I guess that says something about HR-Vs.

I guess that it is better for a car salesman to state that he is unsure of something, rather than provide misinformation. Over the years, I have heard a LOT of misinformation from car sales people, and in addition to displaying a lack of familiarity with what they are selling, some of them don’t have much general knowledge regarding cars–or the sciences that relate to cars.

At the risk of boring the veterans of this forum, I will repeat the worst example of outright ignorance with which I am familiar. My brother decided to “test” a car salesman who seemed to be really stupid, so he pointed to the Traction Control button on the dashboard of a car in the showroom, and asked the salesman to explain how it works. The salesman said
 Oh, when you push that button, it makes the car heavier!
:confounded:

My brother responded that he was very impressed that the manufacturer had figured out how to make its vehicles defy the laws of Physics, and as the dim-witted salesman scratched his head, my brother and sister-in-law left, in search of intelligent life.

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When I went to pick up a car I had bought through online negotiation, I asked the salesman how to open the hood, because I wasn’t finding the pull handle anywhere. He didn’t know and had to ask a mechanic!

A dealer service department has a separate budget to meet from the sales dept. And, many will do whatever they can to meet it. I was sitting in the waiting room at my Subaru dealer and the service manager came in and showed a cabin filter to an elderly couple. He completely overstated the situation and, I swear, the man and his wife looked like someone just told them their beloved dog died. Of course, they agreed to shell out the $85.00 charge. I had all I could do to stay quiet and in my chair. For a fairly capable person, replacing the filter takes about 15 minutes, barring complications. They tried that on me once and showed me (supposedly) my filter, which came a gray color out of the box. When I told him the filter was only a couple of months old and to put it back in, I thought he would cry. If you are unable to do any of the regular maintenance yourself or, the vehicle is under a maintenance agreement, find a reputable independent shop.

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Yeah it’s accounting 101 or MBO. Still, I do all this stuff myself but if I were not here, I think my wife would happily pay the $85 for the service. How to get her to take it in in the first place is something I haven’t figured out yet.

I buy the cabin air filter and the engine air filter ( realy Honda OEM) myself. I change them myself in my 2013 Honda Fit base. You cabin air filter should be “behind” your glove box (see You Tube). Your engine air folter in under housing in engine compartment. If this old gal (really old) can do, you can too. I just had Honda full synthetic oil change, with 25 pt inspection, for $45.00.

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I was at my local Lowe’s yesterday, and I counted 5 lawn tractors out front, along with something like 11 zero-turn machines. Some of the zero-turn machines were battery-powered, and the price I saw on one of them was $5,400. :grimacing:

If it hadn’t been a windy, rainy day, I would have looked more closely at their offerings.

Until 3 months ago I was the shop manager at a local, reputable, busy, independent shop. Labor for a cabin filter would be about .3 hours from the labor guide. List price for a filter hovers around $30, give or take. $144 X .3 = $43.20. So you’re at $75. Not much savings over the dealer.

Well, my cabin filter is $14.00 at Fleet Farm. It took me less than 15 min to replace it. Now by your calculations, that is quite a savings. Even allowing &10.00 for cost of driving there and, I’m 69. I guess you don’t worry about your expenses. Good for you.