Maintenance Question

The hint was around getting OP to maybe consider doing this work herself or getting some help.

 

I would not trust the dealer to perform an oil change anyways. They put the lowest paid and lowest skilled people on the oil change jobs. Especially the "free" oil changes.

Best to do them yourself. Keep all receipts. Or have a good independent shop do them with quality parts.

 

Toyota recommends rotating tires and doing an “inspection” every 5k. My dealer does that free until 25k.

 

Spot on.

 

I would love to learn how to change my own oil and YouTube is helpful with that. Just need the tools and have the supplies on hand as needed.

 

Changing your own oil isn't difficult at all. You just need the basic tools to do so. Then you have to figure if the cost of the tools + your time + the cost of the oil is equal to or less than paying someone to do it.

Sure, a lot of guys on this site (and women!) will shout from the rooftops "I will never let SOMEONE ELSE change my oil." I say fuck that shit. I can pay someone else to do it better and faster than I can. Currently my dealership is offering a lifetime special on oil changes; so I signed up for it and after my 25k Toyota Care is up I will still have them change my oil. I think the special was $39.99? Even if it's $59.99, still worth it.

 

Oil changes? Ain’t nobody got time for that. And by nobody, I mean me.

 

peace be with you sir! I’ll pray for your Yota everyday she makes it. Lol

 

I can see both sides of this. The personal accomplishment of being able to change my own oil is cool. On the other hand, I'm working a 40 hour week like a lot of people, and when the weekends come I want to relax at the beach and do ANYTHING else rather than change my own oil. However, it's a PITA to make a service appointment with Toyota, have a coworker schlep me back and forth to the dealership, and pay some service guy who is forced by his dickhead boss to play salesman and attempt to sell me services I don't need. On the other hand, the personal mechanic is a wanted man, and by wanted I mean he's in high demand because is IS an honest guy. His location can't be beat - literally a one minute walk from my house. The convenience of being able to drop off the 4R to him on a Friday and take my husband's truck to work can't be beat, and when my ride is ready, hubby can walk up and get it for me.

I have a friend in NC who grew up fixing cars with her brothers. That chick can tear down and rebuild a vehicle better than most men. That's talent. But for her it's also a necessity because she can't afford the luxury of a new car , but the tradeoff for that is - she owns horses.

Hubby taught me how to change a tire way back when we first started dating (and yes, Loco, he shares your attitude - let someone else fix it.) Changing tires is one of those things women SHOULD know about cars, because it's a fairly common issue. Glad he taught me. Was up at Rockland Lake near the firehouse many years ago, and one day after coming back from a walk at Hook Mountain, I returned to my car to find a flat tire. Shit. Got the jack and tools out of the hatch and had at it. In the midst of switching wheels I was aware of one of the firemen watching me from the doorway. Got the wheel back on, tightened up the lugs nuts, rolled the jack down, threw everything back into the hatch. Done. That's when the fireman strolled over and said, "I'm impressed!" I asked him why he didn't come over and help and he said, "You had that completely under control and didn't need me."

 

I got the DIY part, but the advantages part?

 

I wanted to clarify, it's not that I can't do it. It's that I don't want to. For years I did it all myself. Everything. Washing, Waxing, Oil changes, Tire rotations, changing spark plugs, dry cleaning/pressing my own shirts and dress pants, mowing my own lawn, cleaning my own pool, cleaning my own house, trimming my own trees.

As I did it, I said to myself "I have pride of ownership and I'm saving tons of money, blah blah blah." Yeah, I saved a lot of money. But I had no time at all to spend said money. Now I have a landscaper, maid, a go-to-dealership/shop (which is very close) for vehicle maintenance, a go-to dry cleaners and I bought one of those year round car wash passes. Now I have tons of free time. The best part? I still have money in my accounts. Paying for all the things I listed is that much. Now, if I get a flat tire while driving or find out it's flat after seeing it in the garage, sure, I'll change it. But in the last 8yrs or so, I haven't had that happen (knock on wood).

Everyone's situation is different, and this is what works best for me.

 

I guess you can say i own a mechanic shop, i work on peoples stuff every day BUT i absolutely despise getting my hands dirty and oil is one of the few things i absolutely hate with a passion. I hate getting oil everywhere and i cringe at the though of something leaking oil on my floors. I have had a rule since i was able to afford my own stuff, keep it till it starts leaking oil and get rid of it. I have stuck by that motto and gotten rid of two good running vehicles when they started to have leaks (again, dont want oil spots in the driveway or on concrete shop floors).

I had always paid Toyota to change my oil to [1] keep great records of everything done to the vehicle [2] make sure they saw the vehicles often and kept up with maintenance and warranty [3] cause i hate changing oil.

My favorite truck prior to my current daily driver was a 2008 Tacoma double cab TRD Sport with the TRD Supercharger. Boy that thing was a beauty and ran like a scalded cat. I ordered it, built it how i wanted, and washed it weekly. Toyota changed the oil like all my other previous stuff and that truck was the first one i ever had problems with their oil change guys. First hiccup was the 10,000 mile oil change. The oil change guy forgot to put the dipstick back in and left the oil cap off. I got my oil changed and was headed out of town afterwards. I got about 20 minutes up the road and started smelling oil bad so i stopped and popped the hood only to find oil all over the hood and all over the engine. I called the service guy who i was very well acquainted with and said "Bill, i got oil everywhere, the guy left the dipstick out and the fill cap off and it blew oil everywhere" He told me to bring it back and they'd get it cleaned up and topped off which they did. The clean job was pretty much a spray down with water hose and i had to do the actual cleaning. The second problem was Fat Tuesday 2009, that morning i went and had my 30,000 mile oil change and the wife and i were going to leave right after to go to the drag races at Hub City for Fat Tuesday. Got the oil changed early at like 8:30-9am and left the oil change place and was headed half way across town to my mini storage to grab some chairs and cooler and on a short straight-away heading to the mini storage i floored it just like i used to do sometimes and i heard an awful ping/clank/boom/knocking and the engine blew up. I was like 6 miles from the dealer on a 45mph road and did a short stab and the truck shifted from 2nd to 3rd and ran up higher RPM in 3rd gear and the engine let go, i was probably around 40-45mph i would guess. It locked the back tires up so i instinctively knocked the trans into neutral and let it roll a bit to a driveway i could pull over in. I got out and could see thru the fender well a big window thru my block and a couple rods hanging out. There was a tiny puddle of black oil under my engine where i parked and a small thin trail of black oil to where i was sitting. One of the rods cut thru the oil pan and drained out about a pint of oil total. I called Bill and said "Hey Bill, i got some bad news i just left and i'm over on Manor drive and i'm pretty sure i can see inside my engine from outside my engine" He did the same thing as last time and said "Ah bring it back in we will look at it" and i had to abruptly tell him "Hey Bill, i'm gonna need a tow.... Its not going to drive anywhere" Bill called me a wrecker and when the wrecker guy got there i told him i had just got the oil changed and i'm pretty sure they didnt put oil in it cause that small black puddle under it was all that came out. The wrecker guy said "Yeah, i've picked up a few just like this before that didnt get any oil and locked up"

The dealer tried to blame me, looking at the black box that records what the vehicles last few minutes were and they showed that when it locked up i was full throttle. They tried to blame me and say i was abusing it and that is why it let go. I fought back and threatened to get a lawyer cause if Toyota didnt want my foot going to the floor they wouldnt make the pedal go that far down, i bought the truck, supercharger, and let the dealer install it in order to retain my warranty and them not putting oil in the engine caused it to blow up, not me or my driving. Eventually it took a month and they somehow got Toyota to replace it by claiming it on my warranty. I got a new engine and supercharger since everything was slam full of metal shavings from top to bottom. That was the last time Toyota changed my oil and i started going to a different shop.

Fast forward to my wifes 2012 4Runner, we used Toyota to change it because Toyota was using the weird plastic cap which nobody was really used to back then and before the wife went out of town for a holiday she went and got the oil changed, and they broke the plastic cap and dumped all her oil out after she left only for me to find a massive puddle of oil all over my concrete floor at the house where she parked while she was loading up to go out of town. That was the LAST time i have ever let the Toyota dealer here in town touch any of my vehicles. IF i need something that only Toyota can do i go two towns over cause our town and the next town over both have a pretty shoddy reputation.

 

Faster? Sure. Better? Only if you can get your 4R back without missing, stripped, or broken parts.

 

My dealer gave me the option to use one of the 2 free oil changes from the ToyotaCare coverage for my early 1st 5k oil change, or pay and hold the 2 free ones. I just took the free oil change at 5k and at 15k since at the time i did 10k oil changes due to my 35k a year.

I continued to go to my dealer because i happen to have a good one and the filter for oil changes sucks on a 4Runner.

 

Exactly.

I'd much rather pay a trusted independent shop to do an oil change. Most of them are cool with you supplying your own oil/filter. I'm a mechanic at a performance shop. Also work on Toyota trucks every weekend. It's amazing how bad the dealers and chain places like Jiffy Lube can be.