Car Buying Game

The first scheduled service is not too pricey. The second scheduled service is a little more expensive but reasonable. The price of the third service is really really expensive. The Assistant Service Manager will sit you down and give you a long list of what they are going to do to your vehicle and it will take up to 4 – 5 hours. HOGWASH!!!!! They may charge you for the 4-5 hours but realistically the big services take the technicians about 1-2 hours. By the way, the dealership will let you sit there for hours or drive you home in a shuttle and call you 4 hours later to make you think that they have been working on your car all that time.

The fact of the matter is that these big services are the Service Departments bread and butter. The Service Managers and Technicians fight over who gets these appointments because they make so much money on them.

Let me also point out that the nice person that is writing up the service is not a salaried employee; he or she is working on commission. They love to write big service tickets on your vehicle, they get paid big commissions.

So you are asking, do you think that I really need to get these bigger (60 and 90 thousand mile) services done? That is a personal decision. If you are very savvy about vehicle mechanics you may want to find an authorized mechanic that will do all necessary work, not the fluff and charge you appropriately. Chances are you are not an expert on this subject and will depend on the dealership for service. Better safe than sorry in most cases.