Car advice, please!

[Burning Petard]

I have a 2018 Corolla that always sits outside. It probably sat outside for the seven months between the day it left the factory in Canada to the day I drove it off the dealer's lot in Delaware. I keep a cleaning kit in the trunk. It consists of a long handled mop device I use on the inside windshield and the interior between the windshield and the steering wheel. With my age and short arms, that area is difficult to reach. I also have there a roll of paper towels. a container of 'Bug and Tar Remover' (used VERY sparingly) a spray bottle of auto glass cleaner,(I think it has little chemical action on the paint and does a good job on the bird and other stuff) a can of liquid car wax free abrasives and containing a slight pigment that matches the car color. It's all for spot cleaning the exterior of bird poop, tree sap, and gas spills while filling. I try to get these immediately. And then I wipe the spot with wax and rub down the spot I just cleaned. I thiink the makers have improved the plastic covers over the lights. I see no yellowing of clouding on mine. On my previous cars, I had to clean them quarterly with toothpaste after they were about two years old, or the headlights were useless.

But the windows! I don 't know what is going on, but I sure does not take a diamond to scratch them. Old, worn and dirty windshield wipers will do it. Be very careful removing ice and frost from the 'glass'. Same with the brush or what ever you use to get snow off the paint.

The drive thru car wash I think is important in winter to get salt and mud off the exterior, particularly the under side.

Snailgate.

[BoSoxGal]

Okay guys I need some advice about sharky.

I just got an email from my dealership suggesting it's time for service, but they estimated my mileage at just over 8000 and I've only got 3200 on it thus far. The car itself tells me I should take it for service at 8k miles. They told me when I bought it that it has full synthetic oil loaded at production.

How often do I need to change the oil? I was fairly religious with Reva and really want this little car to last a long time too. I did Reva every 3-5k, but she was originally on regular oil and later on high mileage synthetic. The dealership email I got says every 6 months regardless of miles - but really should it be changed already with only 3k miles in 6 months? Weather here is not very extreme.

Please advise, thanks!

[Burning Petard]

I think the best advice today is time on the oil is more important than mileage. Me personally, i like every six months. It has become very difficult for me locally to find a place that will take my used oil if I change it myself. Some authorities say I am engaged in superstition, but I prefer to change my own oil and oil filter. I think I use a better quality of both than the dealer, who is looking for 'good enuff' and I am looking for 'the very best'., even if I am wasting money.

The last time I bought a new car (2018) I changed the oil and filter my self at 500 miles, 2000 Miles, and again at 6000 miles. After that, every six months. The dealer says now twice a year is about right.

snailgate.

[Crackpot]

Is the car moving regularly? If so go for miles if you are letting it sit for long periods go by time. Personally I’m wondering how oil change time works in a hybrid. I suppose I could read the manual but why’s the fun of that?

[Joe Guy]

Now that I only drive my 2002 Toyota Tundra about 2500 miles per year I change the (synthetic) oil only once per year. But I check the oil regularly and if it started using oil or looking dark, I would change it sooner. That hasn't happened yet.

[BoSoxGal]

I went ahead and made the appointment - the car is driven at least 5 days/week and usually shorter trips on the weekend, but I can definitely afford to change the oil every six months regardless of mileage and I really want this engine to last a long time oil changes are cheap by comparison I suppose.

I have to say I’m very nervous about taking it to the dealership. I had a very bad no good awful experience at a dealership service center 27 years ago and I haven’t been back to one since. This car came with a two year complimentary service plan though and it would be nice to use it. However on Internet forums for Toyota enthusiasts I’ve found some folks making claims that some dealerships will short shrift on the oil for those service plans because they don’t make much money on them. The manual calls for this vehicle to have 0W-8 oil (never heard of it, apparently it is optimized for high efficiency vehicles) but some dealerships throw in 0W-20 instead which isn’t manufacturer approved for this car.

How can I feel confident? I am willing to speak with my service guy and tell him about my bad experience and ask him to win my trust, but is there some way I can be sure they use the right oil?

This car is running fantastic for me and I am getting well over 40mpg on average and I want it to get the same oil they loaded it with in Japan.

I wish I could borrow a penis for times like these.

[Crackpot]

As far as auto dealers go by and large their derive departments are fairly good (especially if there is any local competition) as they want the return business / word of mouth. The only times I’ve heard of bad service from dealers in my the past 30 years is from rural areas where competition is severely limited.

[Scooter]

The manual calls for this vehicle to have 0W-8 oil (never heard of it, apparently it is optimized for high efficiency vehicles) but some dealerships throw in 0W-20 instead which isn’t manufacturer approved for this car.

I don't know shit about cars, but I would think it odd for a dealer to give you 0W-20 instead of 0W-8 when the latter is more expensive i.e. more money for them, unless it is more difficult to source. Or is what you heard that they are using 0W-20 and telling you it is 0W-8, which would be fraud if you were to discover it.

[Scooter]

As far as auto dealers go by and large their derive departments are fairly good (especially if there is any local competition) as they want the return business / word of mouth. The only times I’ve heard of bad service from dealers in my the past 30 years is from rural areas where competition is severely limited.

When my car was under warranty, I always took it to the dealer for service, and it seemed they would always find little things that needed to be fixed for which they would find some excuse to say that the warranty didn't cover it. I accepted it because I wanted to ensure that they couldn't claim the warranty had been voided in case something serious occurred. And I did keep it for 24 years without any major repairs needed until the very end.

[BoSoxGal]

The manual calls for this vehicle to have 0W-8 oil (never heard of it, apparently it is optimized for high efficiency vehicles) but some dealerships throw in 0W-20 instead which isn’t manufacturer approved for this car.

I don't know shit about cars, but I would think it odd for a dealer to give you 0W-20 instead of 0W-8 when the latter is more expensive i.e. more money for them, unless it is more difficult to source. Or is what you heard that they are using 0W-20 and telling you it is 0W-8, which would be fraud if you were to discover it.

I think the issue is that originally the 0W-8 *was* difficult to source, because it is relatively new and was only approved for use in USA a couple of years ago. So the reddit threads and other places I've seen this as an issue pointed to the fact that most dealerships were using 0W-20 as their stock/bulk oil and putting that into the vehicles that Toyota mandates be filled with 0W-8. The super thin viscosity of 0W-8 optimizes fuel efficiency so is tied in with Toyota's promises to the EPA on fuel efficiency etc.

I watched a bunch of videos on YouTube over the weekend and I feel a bit more confident about the likelihood in 2025 that the dealership is going to load the correct oil as indicated by the manufacturer. It's more readily available now so should be their stock option for vehicles of sharky's type and as you pointed out, it's more expensive and I'm paying for it because I don't get a 'free' oil change until 10k miles which means I'm likely to get only one free oil change from them during the two years of complimentary service - I've only put 3400 miles on her in a little over 6 months. But they will rotate my tires and top off my fluids and I got a $10 coupon toward my oil change so that's good.

What happened to me 27 years ago is that shortly after arriving at law school I took my Mazda 626 to a dealership for an oil change and to check out a sound I was hearing while braking - I went to the dealership in Alexandria, VA because I was new to DC and didn't know anybody to ask about a good, trustworthy mechanic. They kept me waiting for two hours plus, then one of the service writers came into the waiting area and asked me 'how much do you like your car?' He then proceeded to detail multiple thousands of dollars in repairs the vehicle needed to be roadworthy and specifically among them that the motor mounts were about to go and the vehicle wasn't safe to drive around. I suspect he thought because I had breasts, Maine license plates and a Georgetown Law license plate holder that I was an easy mark for pressuring into a trade in on a newer vehicle.

But my vehicle was in very nice condition with around 60k miles on it (I had just purchased it between first and second year of graduate school a year before starting law school) and had zero issues except this new small sound on occasion when braking. I parked the car and didn't drive it until I drove it home at Thanksgiving, when a friend from Maine flew down, did the museums and then made the road trip back with me just in case my car blew up on the side of the highway as I'd been cautioned it was likely to do. My trustworthy mechanic Rick Merchant in Hancock, Maine - a certified Mazda mechanic with his own thriving shop - looked at the car and the estimate I was given and told me that most of the stuff was totally bogus and one thing that they said needed repair wasn't even a system on my vehicle. The sound was a small rock stuck in the brake pad/rotor which he removed.

I wrote a letter to Mazda Corporation; they wrote back and apologized for my experience but explained they weren't responsible for dealership behavior. The service manager at the dealership called me repeatedly for weeks - apparently Mazda forwarded them my letter detailing their attempted fraud - and left messages offering apologies and free service (HA!), but I never called him back for obvious reasons. They were only sorry they'd been caught and would have happily either a) done unnecessary repairs on my perfectly sound vehicle, or b) given me shit on my car for trade in while selling me a newer vehicle I didn't need. The 626 ran another 7 years and close to 200k miles more with just expected maintenance required over that time period before it finally became too unreliable to take on my relocation roadtrip to Arizona, so at that point I bought the gently used RAV4 that became Reva - and it was Rick at Merchant's Auto who did an inspection of Reva for me before I was willing to buy her from a Ford dealership in Ellsworth, Maine.

I *do* understand that Toyota's reliability and service is one of their chief selling points, and that apparently the Toyota Corporation takes a somewhat different view of the dealership responsibility to serve Toyota customers than Mazda did. I'm just going to tell my service guy that I had this bad experience and I'm trusting them to change my mind about dealerships - but I have the expectation that they will do the upselling thing whenever they can try to get away with it, so my expectation is that as soon as the two years of complimentary service are done I will take my sharky back to my trusted, reliable mechanic here in Taunton and let him fulfill any repairs that come up under my extended warranty because his shop accepts those and his mechanics are all Toyota certified, too.

I promise to keep an open mind, though. The Toyota dealership in Swansea where I bought little sharky has free wifi, very comfy waiting area with big screen TV, unlimited free hot chocolate (or other beverage of choice) and gleaming bathrooms so those are all plusses for potentially becoming a loyal customer. We'll see . . .

[Burning Petard]

Toyota is not perfect either. My sister drives a Prius (don't know what year) It is her second Prius. Her husband drives the biggest Toyota pick-up, six years old. It is very much a work truck. They live in central Illinois and they deal with about the only Toyota dealer around. They love the vehicles, and hate the dealer. The final straw for my b-i-l was when they did a tire rotation on the truck (which has factory alloy wheels) they failed to properly torque the nuts and ovaled the holes on the wheels. The wheels were replaced at the dealer's expense.

On the other hand, my experience with my Toyota dealer has been great, except for the $$$.

snailgate

[Crackpot]

Sounds about right. That was the time that manufacturers really started putting their foot down about dealer issues as it became clear that they (dealers) were costing them money .