Expensive 'service'

August 25, 2006

My Prius is approaching the end of its 3 year warranty period in December and I took it in for its 40k service this week. They quoted me £152 for the service, which included a 10% discount for booking online.

Shortly after leaving the dealers, they phoned me to tell me that the visual safety report had highlighted three items that required attention.

1. Engine coolant required replacement. Cost £53

2. Front brake discs were scored and required skimming. Cost £192

3. Steering pulling to left. Requires 4 wheel alignment. Cost £80

Total for all the work came to £476. Quite a bit more than i anticipated spending!

1. Regarding the engine coolant, I checked the service book and its says 'replace after 100k miles and every 60k miles therafter. My Prius has only done 40K! So why would they recomend replacing the coolant? Have I been ripped off?

2. Of course i can't argue with this. If they said the discs needed skimming then I have to accept that as I dont want to be driving with less than perfect brakes. However I have owned several new cars and never ever had to have the disks skimmed. So are they defective? and should this be done under warranty? A quich search on these forums threw up another thread where it seemed that this is a known problem with the avensis and toyota say it is up to the dealer whether this is warranty or chargeable work.

3. I certainly wasn't aware of the car pulling to the left, but they gave me a printout of the test figures before and after alignment. They don't mean much to me so I guess i'll just accept them. The car doesn't seem to drive any differently.

Interested o know if anyone else has these 'problems' at 40k .

One piece of good news. They gave me an up to date copy of the Prius manual. I had asked for this several times, but they always told me there wasn't a more recent one than that provided when the car was new.

August 25, 2006

I would have argued the toss on the brakes :D 40k is not a long time for brakes to last!

August 25, 2006

My Prius is approaching the end of its 3 year warranty period in December and I took it in for its 40k service this week. They quoted me £152 for the service, which included a 10% discount for booking online.
Shortly after leaving the dealers, they phoned me to tell me that the visual safety report had highlighted three items that required attention.
1. Engine coolant required replacement. Cost £53
2. Front brake discs were scored and required skimming. Cost £192
3. Steering pulling to left. Requires 4 wheel alignment. Cost £80
Total for all the work came to £476. Quite a bit more than i anticipated spending!
1. Regarding the engine coolant, I checked the service book and its says 'replace after 100k miles and every 60k miles therafter. My Prius has only done 40K! So why would they recomend replacing the coolant? Have I been ripped off?
2. Of course i can't argue with this. If they said the discs needed skimming then I have to accept that as I dont want to be driving with less than perfect brakes. However I have owned several new cars and never ever had to have the disks skimmed. So are they defective? and should this be done under warranty? A quich search on these forums threw up another thread where it seemed that this is a known problem with the avensis and toyota say it is up to the dealer whether this is warranty or chargeable work.
3. I certainly wasn't aware of the car pulling to the left, but they gave me a printout of the test figures before and after alignment. They don't mean much to me so I guess i'll just accept them. The car doesn't seem to drive any differently.
Interested o know if anyone else has these 'problems' at 40k .
One piece of good news. They gave me an up to date copy of the Prius manual. I had asked for this several times, but they always told me there wasn't a more recent one than that provided when the car was new.

I had the same problem with my corolla, the dealer did it free under warranty.

Was told that disc's are under warranty but not the pads.

August 25, 2006

Had the same problem with the brakes on my Celica T-Sport - it was a common problem on them. I had the discs replaced at 7k and skimmed at 13k :(

August 25, 2006

2. Front brake discs were scored and required skimming. Cost £192

Brakes International will sell you two NEW front discs for a little over £36.

Toyota are having a giraffe.

August 29, 2006

Pretty appalling on the brakes front especially as it uses regenerative breaking for a lot of the time, I would expect the pads and sisk to last getting on for 100K.

The coolant change does not look too impressive either! :crybaby: