If you follow me on Twitter, you know that yesterday I went to get my first oil change on my car. It was a long process, and I didn’t know whether they were taking their sweet time, or if they were busy. The last time I had my car in for maintenance was when I was checking it all out at Mazda before my Warranty was up.Â
At first I said:
Because it’s true. The owner knows my name, and car. Same with the young guy who I think hits on every young woman he sees. But that’s neither here nor there.
After sitting there for more than 25 minutes I started getting impatient. Shouldn’t this take only 15 minutes? What are they doing?
They quoted me for $38-$44 for the oil change and filter. Except…
Yeah. Expensive is it not? They did do a thorough job and check all the fluids in my car and even the timing belt and mentioned that I should replace the transmission fluid before 60,000km’s. Which will end up costing me $225. Uhhh. I think I’ll price around, before I go ahead with this guy because that seems awfully high. Knock on wood so far, everything seems to be running and working properly. Unlike my parents previous car which was such a lemon.
Maintaining a car > Fixing a car = expensive. Boy oh boy, but is it ever worth it.
7 Comments
In Spain you MUST take you car to the brand official workshop to have it serviced if you want to keep the warranty. A usual oil change + filter + inspection in a Honda/VW/Ford dealer costs 90/100 Euro about 130$ so your invoice seems quite reasonable. It takes more or less half an hour to do that and they charge the invoice even with the water they fill up for the wipers.
Next service they will ask you to change air filter and petrol filter…….you’d better buy a piggy bank.
Seems a bit pricey for an oil change. Unless you got synthetic oil, which costs me $60. But for regular oil, I think $40 is the norm.
I take my car to the dealer and I only pay about $38 for one. I have a 09 hyundai. Shop around for an oil change it really should be that much unless they had to change the air filter but that should be on your invoice.
That seems about normal for an oil change. sadly. I hate getting an oil change, I never go at the certain kms I always just go when the oil % on my car gets pretty low (like 20%)
My dad does my oil change. I pay $12 which is the cost of the oil and filter.
I’m glad you’ve found a good mechanic but that oil change sure is pricey! I dread taking one of our cars in because I feel like they see a woman and think oh good we’ll be able to pull the wool over her eyes. :(
I feel like that’s expensive personally, but we do live in different countries so the industry differs.
I try and do as much car maintenaince myself (I have yet to do an oil change myself because we rent a flat and I feel bad tinkering too much with my car on the drive in case I make a mess). If you maintain the fluids well, you shouldn’t have to do an oil change more than once a year unless you’re doing a lot of mileage.