Periodic maintenance

You must look really gullible! Most shysters who maquerade as service writers would not dare try all these things on anyone

My late moither-in-law had a Pontiac Sunbird and drove the same amount of miles. Her maintenance every 6 months was an oil and filter change and checking the antifreeze. Every 30,000 miles I had her change the transmission fluid and filter. Air filter was changed every 2 years. Every 4 years she changed the coolant.

That’s about all your car needs.

Never set foot in that house of thieves again!

Guys, the man is in India.

I suspect that both laws and cultural norms are very different there. I cannot speak from experience, but it may be that in India it’s normal to try to get as much out of the customer as possible with the expectation that the customer will fight back. I think we should provide some window of understanding for a fella trying to maintain his car in a strange land as well as some understanding that what the dealership is doing just might be normal for them.

I don;t know any of these things to be fact, but I’m just sayin’…

Usually the only time I do an alignment is when I replace front end components (tie rod ends, ball joints, etc) or if I notice unusual wear on the tires.

Wheel balancing is usually performed when the tires are put on new and unless the tire has an unusual wear pattern I don’t have it done again unless the tires are sold with FREE lifetime balancing and rotation, then I have it done about every 5-8K miles.

Most cars don’t often need a throttle body cleaning, when I do clean mine I buy aerosol cans of carburetor cleaner and clean it myself for about $3.

For fuel injectors I might add a bottle of injector cleaner available at any auto parts or even Walmart once every 1-2 years, even then it’s probably overkill.

The engine oil may or may not need changing at this point. If most of your driving is short trips where the engine never reaches temperatures to burn off moisture it probably needs changing, but if most trips allow the engine to maintain full operating temperature for 10-15 minutes it’s probably burning off the moisture and I wouldn’t change the oil more than ever 3K miles unless the car is still under warranty and it’s required to have an oil change every 6 months to keep the warranty intact.

Battery water should be free if it’s even applicable. Many car batteries made today are sealed type that can’t have water added to them. Even if they are adding water it’s likely less than 2 oz. to bring it back to the fill lines.

Wheel weights doesn’t make since either. This sounds like you’re being double charged. You’re already paying for wheel balancing, the cost of weights should be included in this unless you’ve got mag wheels and have to use stick on weights.

Brake shoe cleaning? What is this never even heard of it? If they do anything it’s probably only blowing it out with compressed air and maybe spraying on some brake parts cleaner. This needs only be done when getting a brake job.

Greasing the caliper pins might be a good idea every spring to keep the brakes fully functional IF you drive on roads that have been salted regularly throughout the winter, but if the car isn’t driven on salted roads, only when doing a brake job is probably sufficient to keep the calipers free and operating correctly.

I’ve never performed an engine flush on any of my vehicles and my oldest car is 24 years old with 518,700 miles and has probably averaged an oil change about every 4-5K miles since new. Sounds to me like they are giving your wallet a FLUSH. I’d start taking the car to an independent garage for servicing or do it myself if I were you.

I own a '97 Ford Escort that’s only got 32K miles on it and is mostly driven on longer trips 1-2 times a year. Since new it’s averaged an oil change about every 1.5 years. I change the oil every 3K miles regardless of elapsed time and it’s never had any of the other service you have listed except wheel balancing when I put new tires on it and battery water which I added myself.

Thanks everyone for responding.

I’m in a dilemma. Over the past few days I’ve been reading a lot about car maintenance and it’s got me more confused that I was earlier. According to my car’s owner’s manual, I drive my car under severe conditions here in India (really rough roads full of dust and potholes; repeated short distance driving; and driving in really hot weather). So the manual recommends that I do some stuff with each maintenance that someone in an earlier post said I don’t need to do at all unless there’s a driveability problem, like throttle body cleaning.

Some websites (not the owner’s manual) recommend that under such severe conditions it is important to get the following stuff done on a regular basis, such as wheel balancing/alignment, fuel injector cleaning and engine flushing.

So, I don’t know what to do. Any suggestions?

Wheel balance? (This is an outright scam, I guarantee they did nothing)

WTF is a “supercharge”? (This is an outright scam, I guarantee they did nothing)

HOW exactly did they de-carbonize the engine (This is an outright scam, I guarantee they did nothing)

5&6? How? Did they remove and replace the plug while oil was in the pan? This is f*cking ridiculous. (This is an outright scam, I guarantee they did nothing)

Can you list what these A-holes charged you for each of these services?

Brake shoe cleaning?

Wheel balancing
Wheel alignment
Throttle body cleaning
Fuel injector cleaning
Engine oil
Battery water
Wheel weight
Filter Assy - Engine oil
Brake shoe cleaning
Caliper pin greasing
Engine flushing

You know, I’m going to stop here.
Does anyone else see a pattern?
EVERY one of these “jobs” is something that can’t be verified, particularly when nothing’s wrong.
I GUARANTEE they are doing none of these.

These motherf*ckers are the most crooked shop I have EVER seen exposed on an auto forum.

You should go back there and call these scumbags to the carpet.
Ask them to tell you exactly what these tasks were.

Actually guys, some of the stuff is justified. In addition to the hot, dusty climate, the car will be subjected to bad gas frequently so fuel injector cleaning is required. What I am not seeing here that I would have expected is an air filter, I wonder if that is their “super charger”.

It is also quite possible that it will need frequent wheel balances and alignments, but considering the shape of the roads, I wonder if anyone would notice if a wheel was out of balance. I would not count on the quality of the gas or oil to be up to our standards.

There’s probably no harm done except to your wallet but it appears to be a case of overservicing to me. Double check your car’s owner’s manual. I doubt very much the manual suggests this level of servicing or at these low mileage intervals. Einstein said “Keep things as simple as possible, but no simpler.” His recommendation for you I expect would be “Do everything the owner’s manual recommends, but no more than that.”

If someone told me my car needed an engine flush, wheel alignment, induction cleaning, and so on and so on every 1200-1500 miles that car would be gone and I’d be riding a burro… :slight_smile:

Champak, your car will likely need a bit more servicing than a typical American car. But not this much or these kinds. I’m sure there are some fine, honest mechanics near you, and you may need to ask your friends with cars some questions to find one. Ask them what services their mechanics perform regularly. Maybe explain that you don’t trust your mechanic and would like to compare your invoices and theirs. Several mechanics here have told you which services are useless or weren’t performed at all, so you know what to look for now. Good luck. Oh, be sure to tell everyone you know not to go to your cheating mechanic. He’s deserves a bad reputation and you should help spread it around.

not all batterys our maintence free the ones i sell our service able with low milage use you need to watch the battary more often and read the owners manuel. there is a lot of important info inside it about ypour cars needs.

oil drain plugs to get screwed up over time so never say never ok ok

Oil drain plugs do not by themselves get screwed up over time. They only get screwed up if someone screws them up. They typically get screwed up by either overtorquing or crossthreading.