the Cost of Toyota Repair

This was the largest of all the scheduled maintenances for this car. It's pretty thorough and includes inspecting just about everything in the car. It included all the regular, minor service things like an oil change and fluid level checks, but it also included more detailed examinations of all aspects of the car. A "free" car wash was also included with the service. Replacement of the spark plugs was a costly portion of the procedure. By itself, this would cost over $150. The spark plugs are iridium and are supposed to last 95,ooo miles. I never saw the original spark plugs to verify whether or not they needed to be replaced. Other materials included all fluids, and there was a disposal fee for the oil change. This was a small portion of the bill - maybe $10.00 total. Other than state and local, there were no taxes on this service. Sadly, I did not have cash on hand with which to tip the shuttle driver who picked me up from work. I would have given him $3-5 if I had it on me. They did do a free cleaning and adjustment of my wiper fluid nozzles, which I appreciated and was expecting to have to pay for because they were pretty gunked up.

Their service here was absolutely great. The service rep was really friendly and he even seemed to empathize with me about the cost of the work I was having done. The shop called me at work before the service was complete to suggest some additional work that they said needed to be done. The person who called me was the same as the person who took my car in the morning (he was also there at the end of the day.) He seemed to be pretty honest about these additional repairs. Ultimately he told me that they could both wait. I requested a ride from work back to the shop, and the service here was great as well. The person who picked me up arrived on time. He was pretty nice and talkative, so I suppose that if I wasn't in the mood for that it would have been annoying. However, it didn't bother me at all. He drove safely. When I arrived, the rep walked me to the cashier and handed me my keys. Even the cashier was friendly. When I checked out the car, everything seemed fine, and they had done a pretty decent job of washing it.

In my case, I felt that I was being dealt with honestly and fairly, but that's not always true in situations like this. An obvious thing to do is to see if there are any online reviews about the places you are considering using. If you're like me, though, you live in a small town and there really isn't a lot of variety. I still find that online reviews can be helpful if only because they make you aware of what to watch out for. Especially be careful when you're told of additional repairs of services that you did not originally intend to pay for. Typically these are presented to you via a phone call in the middle of the day asking for an immediate decision. If you're not comfortable with it, get off the phone and talk to someone you trust who is more knowledgeable about vehicles. Perhaps they can give you an idea of whether or not the repair or service is really needed. In my experience, this is where going to the dealership pays off. The mechanics at dealerships seem to me to be more honest in general. This may not be true, but it has been in my experience.