30K miles service?

[fit]

Rick,

I am new to this board. I would appreciate your thoughts on 30K mile service recommended by the dealer. I bought a 2007 Honda Odyssey with 28K miles. I recently took it to a dealer to get oil change (The van has 32K miles now) and the service adviser recommended that I do a 30K mile service. My owners manual does not mention any service other than following the maintenance minder display and replacing brake fluid every 3 years.

Should I spend 400$ to get oil/filter/cabin filter change along with a bunch of inspections?

Thanks
-f

[Deleted]

Never!

[Trongersoll]

Sadly, most Dealers have their own personal Maintenance Schedules (agendas). They will tell you that their years of experience have shown that... ie. 2500 mile oil change.

I guess the people who make the cars don't really understand how the cars work and wear. Maybe the manufacturers should have the dealers write the owners manual maintenance schedule.

[tskeeter]

fit, the maintenance listed in the owner's manual maintenance schedules is more than adequate. In reality, the dealer's 250 point list of checks and inspections usually consists of little more than listening and feeling for out of spec conditions while driving the vehicle into the shop, opening the hood to look for the same, raising the car on the hoist and walking under the car looking for things that are out of order, then checking off everything on the list as having been inspected. They might have to go as far as removing a wheel to check brake linings, but I can check the amount of lining left on most cars with alloy wheels and four wheel disk brakes by looking through the wheel with a small mirror and a flashlight. Is a job that can be done in half an hour by any person that has basic automotive knowledge really worth $400? To me that seems to be a lot of money for what is essentially an oil change and keeping your eyes open for other problems.

Gee, while replacing fluids in my car weekend before last, I did a full under carriage inspection! (I happened to notice oily dirt on a shock as I was removing the drain plug on a differential, and realized there appeared to be fluid where it didn't belong on a brake dust shield (bad grease seal and wheel bearing) as I drained the transfer case. Inspection complete. If I was a dealer, I'd charge you a bunch of money for those "inspections", even though I did nothing more than pay attention as I was performing other service.) I'll have to send myself an invoice for $200 for the suspension, brake system, and drive train inspections.

[Trongersoll]

Jul 20, 2011 17:57:37 GMT -5 @rj said:

Jul 20, 2011 13:33:21 GMT -5 Trongersoll said:

Sadly, most Dealers have their own personal Maintenance Schedules (agendas). They will tell you that their years of experience have shown that... ie. 2500 mile oil change.

I guess the people who make the cars don't really understand how the cars work and wear. Maybe the manufacturers should have the dealers write the owners manual maintenance schedule.

There is a lot of truth to what you are saying, I still reccommend oil changes at 3k, but hey thats just me and I have never had an oil related failure. But then again most people dont keep a car past 100k and dont care if the motor last any longer than that

I used to subscribe to the 3K oil change, 30 years ago when things weren't as well made as they are today. I the late 70's i did what i thought was an interesting experiment with a '75 Firebird, 350 CI V8. Mobil 1 had just come out and the reviews where amazing. I drove that Firebird over 100K miles without changing the oil, sorta. Every 5k miles the Oil was removed, the oil filter replaced, and the old oil poured back in and added a quart to replace what was in the filter.

Never had a problem. sold it with 120K miles and no engine problems, ever.

Nothing wrong with 3k mile oil changes, but there is a lot of life in the oil that is removed, especially with today's high tech oils and cars.

[fit]

Thank you all for the replies.