Dealership prices

[alex_alexs28]

Hi there,

I have called Steven Eagell Toyota in Radlett to ask how much would cost me to change my engine coolant and the inverter coolant, for the hybrid system. The guy there said £210, each one being £105, which felt like quite a lot. He was also super ready to book me. 😅

However, because I like to try more options, I went on the Steven Eagell official website - enquiry, where I went on the Live Chat and asked the same thing. The price given there was a little less than half, £99 including VAT... 

I don't know how to judge this but I am little disturbed. What do you think?
 

Edited January 7, 2022 by alex_alexs28
typo mistake

[TonyHSD]

Any chance you had wrongly understood the price from the web chat? If it’s £99 likely to be only for the engine coolant and perhaps another £99 for the inverter. Tbh £210 as quoted for both originally it’s not that bad since you will need 2 or maybe even 3 x 5ltr pink ready mixed coolant that will cost you around £80 -£120 just for the coolant, add the labour and here it comes the price seems fine to me. What mileage is your car? First change of engine coolant is 100k miles or 10 years, for the inverter is 150k miles then after each 50k miles for both. I am approaching 200k miles and will do them both in the next 3-4 weeks. 👍

[Roy124]

Is £12 worth arguing about?  Just tell them the price you found.  If they match it fine.  If not don't die in a ditch over it. 

[alex_alexs28]

33 minutes ago, TonyHSD said:

Any chance you had wrongly understood the price from the web chat? If it’s £99 likely to be only for the engine coolant and perhaps another £99 for the inverter. Tbh £210 as quoted for both originally it’s not that bad since you will need 2 or maybe even 3 x 5ltr pink ready mixed coolant that will cost you around £80 -£120 just for the coolant, add the labour and here it comes the price seems fine to me. What mileage is your car? First change of engine coolant is 100k miles or 10 years, for the inverter is 150k miles then after each 50k miles for both. I am approaching 200k miles and will do them both in the next 3-4 weeks. 👍

I doubled check on the Live Chat, asking if for both operations, and she said ''Yes, that is correct'' 

I have 37,600 miles on the car.

I know about the 100,000 miles or 10 years but there is this guy on YouTube, which claim to be working as a mechanic in a Toyota Garage in North America, specialised on hybrids and is saying not to wait 10 years if I don't reach 100,000 miles but to go when the cars turns 6 years, which happened recently.

The coolant looks clean, at the right level. It doesn't feel necessarily to be changed but I don't know... I'd rather change it than regretting later.

26 minutes ago, Roy124 said:

Is £12 worth arguing about?  Just tell them the price you found.  If they match it fine.  If not don't die in a ditch over it. 

Difference is £110.

[FROSTYBALLS]

54 minutes ago, alex_alexs28 said:

I know about the 100,000 miles or 10 years but there is this guy on YouTube, which claim to be working as a mechanic in a Toyota Garage in North America, specialised on hybrids and is saying not to wait 10 years if I don't reach 100,000 miles but to go when the cars turns 6 years, which happened recently.

The climate is different in the US to the UK (wider extremes of weather and temperature - hotter in summer, colder in winter, etc), so you have to question whether the 'advice' from US based Youtubers is actually applicable to the UK. 

I would suggest the manufacturer would know better than any of these people, having tested their cars for 1,000's of miles, through worse extremes, and far beyond the experience of said 'experts'.

[TonyHSD]

The guy is as trained as best can be any other Toyota technician around the world if we are talking about the car care nut, but indeed he is based in US and his tips often apply to his region plus sometimes he give his own advice and opinion which is slightly different against the one from Toyota for example and in many cases he might be right, the life experience driving and working on these cars is priceless and ultra useful. I wouldn’t be worried though about the coolant in your particular case, your car is too young and mileage is too low for coolant change. Bring her up to 100k miles or 10 years then you have a reason to change it. At this age and mileage I will only do AC service ( vacuum test and regas plus new cabin filter) and brake fluid change and brake service, cleaning brakes all around as addition to the regular yearly oil and filter change. Hybrid Battery cooling fan filter check, clean or replace is the other thing you should double check and that is all pretty much. 👍

[Cyker]

No harm in doing it early, but best not to if you're servicing in the dealer network as, depending on how good your dealer is, it may confuse them (Ages ago I had something done on my one of my Mk1s, can't remember what now, but they had it scheduled in the next service and I told them not to because it had already been done, then the next next service they said it needed to be urgently done because it was marked as skipped on the previous service )

As for the price gouging, yeah - My experience so far with my two nearest dealers is if I ask the servicing dept for quotes for work they *always* try to screw me. Often I'll get quotes from the parts desk (from the one dealer who *has* an actual parts desk anyway), and they usually give discounts on the parts which would save money over the service dept quote.

What trumps both is going to the central office, either live chat, phone or e-mail for quotes. Sometimes they fob you off to the dealer, but sometimes they will quote and often give lower prices. My mate booked his Auris HSD in for servicing for the first time and was quoted 300-something plus 56 for the MOT. Was very unhappy about this; Called the central number to complain, got the servicing for (IIRC) less than 200 and MOT for 30!!

That in turn annoyed me as he was in smug mode for the rest of the day, but worse I'd been paying 56 for the MOT at the same place every service since it opened! Now I know better... just hope I remember since the Mk4 won't be due for an MOT for 3 years!

 

 

[FROSTYBALLS]

Also bear in mind that Youtubers are there to make money out of you - including the number of subscribers they have, advertising, subscribers clicking on ads (whether intentional or not), etc. So they aren't exactly impartial.

[Cyker]

Yeah they do tend to get a bit click-baity. Scotty Kilmer would probably win some sort of award for his level of clickbait!

[alex_alexs28]

7 hours ago, FROSTYBALLS said:

The climate is different in the US to the UK (wider extremes of weather and temperature - hotter in summer, colder in winter, etc), so you have to question whether the 'advice' from US based Youtubers is actually applicable to the UK. 

I would suggest the manufacturer would know better than any of these people, having tested their cars for 1,000's of miles, through worse extremes, and far beyond the experience of said 'experts'.

 

6 hours ago, TonyHSD said:

The guy is as trained as best can be any other Toyota technician around the world if we are talking about the car care nut, but indeed he is based in US and his tips often apply to his region plus sometimes he give his own advice and opinion which is slightly different against the one from Toyota for example and in many cases he might be right, the life experience driving and working on these cars is priceless and ultra useful. I wouldn’t be worried though about the coolant in your particular case, your car is too young and mileage is too low for coolant change. Bring her up to 100k miles or 10 years then you have a reason to change it. At this age and mileage I will only do AC service ( vacuum test and regas plus new cabin filter) and brake fluid change and brake service, cleaning brakes all around as addition to the regular yearly oil and filter change. Hybrid battery cooling fan filter check, clean or replace is the other thing you should double check and that is all pretty much. 👍

 

3 hours ago, Cyker said:

No harm in doing it early, but best not to if you're servicing in the dealer network as, depending on how good your dealer is, it may confuse them (Ages ago I had something done on my one of my Mk1s, can't remember what now, but they had it scheduled in the next service and I told them not to because it had already been done, then the next next service they said it needed to be urgently done because it was marked as skipped on the previous service )

As for the price gouging, yeah - My experience so far with my two nearest dealers is if I ask the servicing dept for quotes for work they *always* try to screw me. Often I'll get quotes from the parts desk (from the one dealer who *has* an actual parts desk anyway), and they usually give discounts on the parts which would save money over the service dept quote.

What trumps both is going to the central office, either live chat, phone or e-mail for quotes. Sometimes they fob you off to the dealer, but sometimes they will quote and often give lower prices. My mate booked his Auris HSD in for servicing for the first time and was quoted 300-something plus 56 for the MOT. Was very unhappy about this; Called the central number to complain, got the servicing for (IIRC) less than 200 and MOT for 30!!

That in turn annoyed me as he was in smug mode for the rest of the day, but worse I'd been paying 56 for the MOT at the same place every service since it opened! Now I know better... just hope I remember since the Mk4 won't be due for an MOT for 3 years!

 

2 hours ago, Cyker said:

Yeah they do tend to get a bit click-baity. Scotty Kilmer would probably win some sort of award for his level of clickbait!

Hi guys, 

Thank you for your replies.

I don't contest the fact that they may want to bring viewers and clickbaits but can be useful too. At least this is how I find it.

I will not be changing the coolant now. It looks good, so I guess I have no reason and I will continue to use it up to 100,000 miles as the book is saying.

Speaking of maintenance, in September 2021, my 5 years Toyota Warranty has terminated. I have done a service with them before that, which gave me an extra year warranty. Since then, I bought service kits from eBay, and I only booked them to change my oil and the oil filter, changing myself the engine air filter and the cabin filter, and cleaning the hybrid filter from the rear seat, checking the alignment at Hunter HawkEYE centres, adjusting when necessary. I have done this every 5,500 miles, two times so far, within 6 months. I am driving quite a lot for work.

It started to be a confusion for me now. I bought the car in April 2021, and was from a Ford Delearship. They did a full service on it, and I know that they have changed the spark plugs along with the oil and oil filter, and back then had 21,300 miles, and shortly after I bought a set of four new tyres.

Now, I am not sure what I should prioritise for the next services. I know that I have to give attention for the brake fluids, changing it every two years but I am not sure if I should be aware of certain miles too in this regard. My brakes are 8mm front and 6mm.

Also, I am not sure about the windscreen fluid. I never topped it up myself, and I did use every now and then. I assumed that was changed at the service but I never saw it on the paper, and I start to think that I need to top it up soon. Any recommendations?

I will have a look on the Wiper Blades too. If I need to change them, would be better to go for original ones? Do you have any recommendations?

If there is anything else that I should consider, please let me know.

[AJones]

When I was looking to get a repair done at the dealers I'd assumed as a franchised dealership they were all going to be charging pretty standard prices for the same repair work, like visiting any major chain trading under the same brand name, but the difference can be huge.

So if you are getting something done which isn't a fixed price job, then definitely worth ringing around at least 3, preferably each from a different chain to get an idea of what is a fair price.

[TonyHSD]

Hi, 

best to stick to Toyota recommendation services at 10k miles that will include oil and filter change. As addition to that I can recommend to you cabin filter change same intervals as oil changes 10k miles, air filter 20k miles, spark plugs 60k miles, transmission fluid drain and refill at 80k miles. Wiper Blades as required, no need to be oem but they are good indeed, you can buy just the rubber blades or new wipers, Bosch, hella, Michelin are good ones. Wheel alignment no need that often, once a couple of years or if you hit something, otherwise these cars lasts long time without issues. Regular checks all around and under bonnet are good and essential for the car overall health and don’t forget to top up washer fluid, I do that on weekly basis. Car washes are also beneficial as part of the schedule maintenance of any proud owner  👍

[forkingabout]

We use this stuff as work

Toyota part number 08889 80072

[roks]

1 hour ago, forkingabout said:

We use this stuff as work

Toyota part number 08889 80072

Better to get the concentrate if you do diy flush, as you never get all of it out of the block, its easier to calculate the 50/50 mixture. If you did a flush with distilled water, you just add the 50% concentrate and the other 50% is your water that did not drain out +/_ a bit. If you buy pre-mixed, you are further diluting the 50/50 as you also have plain water in the block.

I cant seem to find the pink concentrate anymore, its all pink pre-mixed or red concentrate...I guess Mr.T wants to sell you half of coolant for the same price.

[TonyHSD]

I think that’s the best option imo, for replacement only drain and refill therefore ready mixed works best for me. Just ordered x2 some gear oil and new plugs, I have the rest and in about  3 weeks time will get my hands dirty. Second Anniversary service 🤫🤣

[forkingabout]

1 hour ago, roks said:

Better to get the concentrate if you do diy flush, as you never get all of it out of the block, its easier to calculate the 50/50 mixture. If you did a flush with distilled water, you just add the 50% concentrate and the other 50% is your water that did not drain out +/_ a bit. If you buy pre-mixed, you are further diluting the 50/50 as you also have plain water in the block.

I cant seem to find the pink concentrate anymore, its all pink pre-mixed or red concentrate...I guess Mr.T wants to sell you half of coolant for the same price.

I work for another part of Toyota & that's the stuff the part's department supply us that we use in the IC counter balance forklifts.

Ready mixed is easier for most people as its just pour in to the correct level.

Its also cheap enough on the parts system.

 

[roks]

3 hours ago, TonyHSD said:

I think that’s the best option imo, for replacement only drain and refill therefore ready mixed works best for me. Just ordered x2 some gear oil and new plugs, I have the rest and in about  3 weeks time will get my hands dirty. Second Anniversary service 🤫🤣

Maybe its a easy solution but you still have about 40-50% of the old coolant in the engine block.

[TonyHSD]

5 minutes ago, roks said:

Maybe its a easy solution but you still have about 40-50% of the old coolant in the engine block.

I drain only from the radiator straight into a tube and then refill, total 5ltr, think this is over 80% replacement, done twice at 100 and 150k miles. No need to touch the block., I do air bleed procedure though. Same with the  inverter, drain and refill only, takes about 3ltr 👍 

[FROSTYBALLS]

On 1/7/2022 at 10:10 PM, alex_alexs28 said:

I am not sure about the windscreen fluid

Top it up yourself. Pre-mixed is easier for summer. Concentrate allows you to tailor the de-icing properties of the washer fluid in winter. Don't use washing up liquid as, unless it is diluted properly, it can collect in the bottom of the washer bottle and block the tubing. 

Toyota has used the pink Super Long Life coolant in new cars since around 2003 (my 2006 Corolla had this from new), has a longer service life than the red Long Life coolant, and requires less frequent changes.

[forkingabout]

Halfords normally have multibuy offers on various ready mixed & also concentrated screen wash during various times of the year.

If you have space in the garage / shed it makes sense to stock up when it's on offer.

 

[loz8]

maybe this year,7th the dealer will recommend it,I'm certainly not going to push for more work than necessary.