When to stop taking your car to the dealer for scheduled service?

[macroy]

If there is no maintenance included with the car. The dealer will never see my car unless it's a warranty fix or recall.
And for anything I can do - I'm doing it myself. Maybe it's just my quirk, but actually doing the work in my own garage is more convenient than having to make an appointment and taking time out of my day to drop of/pickup the car.

[irman]

Originally Posted by Javacoffee

We've never found a trustworthy independent mechanic. We stick with the dealership and have never felt cheated. It has a comfortable waiting room too.

We have used this particular repair shop because we know him very personally, and for quite a few years now like over 20 years...
The one thing we really like about him is that he never tries to up-sell or over-sell his services. We bring him our car about twice a year for major services which are hard to do for me (no proper tools). A day after we bring the car in he calls up and lets us know what "needs" to be done. No more no less.

I do not care about a nice waiting room or coffee and snacks while I am waiting. When our car(s) is/are done, our repair guy calls and we pick up the car. It is then when he tells us when the next service "must" be performed and when.

All I can say, to each his own, and I would never critisize any person for only going to a dealer for car services.
The 'sad' part is that as I get older, I can do lesss things on my own so more and more I do less on our car(s) and let our repair man do the work...

[BostonMike7]

Originally Posted by macroy

but actually doing the work in my own garage is more convenient than having to make an appointment and taking time out of my day to drop of/pickup the car.

That's how it is for me as well. Any service that my newer vehicles have needed, it's been in my scope of ability to perform, including computer diagnostics. Just easier for me to do it myself vs tie up a day by dropping off a car, and waiting around carless. I have no qualms about rolling up my sleeves.


I realize however that one needs to possess the ability to perform such repairs/service.

[Ralph_Kirk]

I've said that I'd take my current vehicle to the dealer for transmission problems, but the last time I did:

I took it in at 7:30 on a Thursday morning for diagnosis.

I had to leave the car there until Monday before the transmission technician had even looked at it. It would have cost me $150 and my place on the docket to take it out of the dealership. Counting the rental car, that was $450 just to get the transmission diagnosed.

It was the next Thursday before they'd done some adjustments.

That's pretty typical of service timelines for the dealers around here.