Good example of why doing the easy stuff can save good money - the engine air filter and, ESPECIALLY, the cabin air filter. I bet the cabin filter can be changed in a few minutes, and you can buy them pretty cheaply online or at local parts stores.
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More helpful information. Thanks to all! I’m glad that my feelings (about the price being out of line) were correct. I’m sure there are plenty of people that just pay it and don’t question it or think about it and some dealerships are happy to take advantage of this.
Absolutely NOT. Over-maintaining the cooling system is asking for trouble. Change the coolant on schedule and do not flush, just drain and fill and the cooling system will last the life of the vehicle. The only thing I owuld add to the cooling system maintenance is to change ALL the rubber hoses and plastic connectors and the thermostat every other coolant change.
This should be OK till 30k unless the OP lives in a very dusty area.
For the quality of the cabin air filters compared to home HVAC filters, they are way over-priced, on line and especially in stores. As for being easy to replace, not so easy. Most people have a lot of junk in the glove box that must be removed, then the glove box has to come out. The filter was an add on after the HVAC and glove box were designed so easy replacement was not an option.
To save a few pennies on the glove box, instead of using spring loaded pins, the glove box itself must be distorted with great effort in order to get it out for the filter replacement. If the manufacturers changed the design of the glove box just a little, that job could be more reasonable for owner maintenance, and much lower labor cost if done at the dealership.
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Not all cars work that way. Some have you access the filter underneath the center console.
I don’t mind the glovebox access, except the way Honda does (or maybe did) it. They put a plastic panel in front of the air filter that required you to remove the glovebox and then spend a bunch of time unscrewing that panel and carefully pulling it out. If you had it done at the shop, labor charges were ridiculous because of all the extra time that panel added.
I ended up marking where the filter was under the panel, removing it, and then cutting out a rectangle so that you could access the filter just by dropping the front of the glovebox. Meant a filter replacement took 3 minutes rather than 30.
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Imagine owning a $36,000 car and balking at a $500 maintenance bill.
My recommendation is to find out how much maintenance costs before you buy your next car.
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My 2014 Camry has easy access to the cabin air filter through the glove box. Pinch tabs (or whatever the proper term for them are) pop off a small cover plate over one end of the filter. Pull out the old filter, slide in the new filter, pop the cover plate back in place.
The springs on the pinch tabs are stiff enough that I’ve been challenged by that due to my arthritic hands but the access design still makes it easy for most people to do it.
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+1
What I do, in order to make the sides of the glove box more flexible, is to heat the sides of the box with an old hair dryer. That makes it much easier to bend/distort the sides of the box in order to access the filter.
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Well, if it should cost $250 I call the OP smart for “balking”.
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Should it cost $250? The $440.36 quote seems reasonable to me if it’s a dealership service department, and not an independent shop. They have lots of overhead, and they sell expensive cars.
If I spent $36,000 on a car, and then took it in for 15,000 mile service, I’d look at a $250 quote with deep suspicion that they were selling work they had no intention of performing, or that they might be skipping important items.
Dealer service managers must love you.
Did you see the OP’s post about another dealer offering it for about &250, and the discussion about how that seems about right, based on the few items needed at 15,000?
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I guess the thought that they don’t do unneeded things at the 15000 mile service did not occur .
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Nonsense, I am not going to look in the owners’ manual for that Mazda. In my vehicles at 15,000 miles consist of checking various component conditions. All are included with the oil change and tire rotation for <$50 at the dealership.
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Sounds like your shop prices not only reasonably . . . but correctly
When I say correctly, I mean that it’s priced in such a way that the price is fair, but at the same time high enough to keep out those customers who are inevitably more trouble than they’re worth
I’m not going to get into any details . . .
Owning a $36,000 car isn’t a big deal nowadays
Just saying
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Yep, less than the average new car price
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I don’t have a problem with a $500 maintenance bill…if that’s really what’s needed. I know service is expensive for 30K, 60K, and 90K. This is reasonable. But I have never had another car that was so expensive for the 15K service.
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The same dealership sells some other brands (including Subaru). Here are the service prices for a Subaru Forester:
6K - $95.21
12K - $159.07
18K - $95.21
That seems more reasonable than what the Mazda service shop is charging.
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I happily stand corrected.
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I gotta go with purebred here. 15k miles…what does the manual recommend? Just guessing, but probably the second or third oil change. Rotate the tires….”inspect” another thing or three…100 bucks or less around here. Otherwise folks will just change their own oil and filter and go on with life.
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Exactly. I learned 20 years ago that raising prices also raises the quality of customers. If the cost of a service or repair is the first thing someone is worried about, they are probably not qualified to be our customer. The hardest thing for a manager or owner to accept is that we don’t need everyone who walks in the door. We “lose” somewhere around 30% of work based on price alone. As in “My Check Engine light is on, can you check it out?” “Yes we can, we charge $149 for that.” “Oh, I’ll try somewhere else.”
Now on the other hand we have to back that up by our level of service. Yeah, we charge $89.95 for an oil change that you can get at the dealer for $20 less, but the quality of our oil change is better than what you get from the dealer.
Maybe. There’s a lot of particulate matter around here lately, they say the forest fires will be burning through October. Either way, it’s $25. Can’t get a couple of turkey sandwiches for that much.
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Back in he sixtires I nearly bought a Jaguar. At the last moment I decided to pay the local dealer a visit and get a price for the various service packages.
Not only did the cylinder head need “decoking” every 20,000 miles, according to the company but the brakes and other components needed regular service, something we had quit doing on American cars.
The dealer had an impressive shop and the mechanics all had the right accents.
I passed up the deal and stuck to my Pontiac Bonneville
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