One of the wonderful things about a Saturday morning where you could not stay out late because you had to get up early to take your car in early is it puts you in the right mood for the entire dealership service department experience.
Let’s start with some advice. If you are not on a forum about your car, then get on a forum about your car. If you don’t work on your car, then work on your car.
Let’s get back to reality. Your car has an issue and either you could not be inclined to fix the issue or you did not possess the ability to fix the issue. We are now here at the dealership.
To outline your experience we will start as you arrive, at your scheduled appointment and within their hours of operation. If you thought the service staff would be on time and not hung over, then welcome. This will be an interesting experience for you. Most likely, the mechanic who works on your car won’t be in for another hour. You have that appointment though!
I don’t have good, you’re going to be here a while, advice other than writing posts to kinja and reading your car’s forums. However, there is a magical phrase you should start with. “Quote me for anything billable and ask me permission to do the work before working on my car” and “here are my warranties”. When you hand them the warranties act like you just gave them a bar of gold bullion. Because you did and those papers are worth their weight in gold. If they refuse to do your warranty work, leave. Their service department is there to do that. I had a service department, hello Mazda in Arlington, refuse to do my after market warranties. I left. That was easy.
We are now sitting in the waiting room and you may be wondering, are we there yet? We aren’t. They’ll do an assessment and return with the post mortum. Your flux capacitor has kidney stones and they need to flush your radiator. At this point, because of statements made earlier, you can refuse service and leave.
Because this article is an amalgamation of anecdotal situations I have personally had, we will add some of my service history. My 30k mile maintenance was quoted at 2000 dollars. Which includes, spark plugs, spark plug wires, coils, and new transmission fluid. Because I wrench on my car I know this job takes 2 hours and requires at most 550$ in parts and 250$ in equipment. I did not know their mechanics made 600$ in labor an hour. I should seriously consider a career change. I’ve also been offered headlight reconditioning for 100$, where they take a 50$ power drill and 15$ 3M pads and scrub my headlights for half an hour. I guess that half an hour of work is just cheaper. Point is if you wrenched on your car you’d notice this suddenly apparent trend that you are getting screwed. Needless to say, if I can afford to buy the equipment, supplies and pay myself my hourly rate (about 30$-45$ an hour) I will reject their services and do them on a Saturday afternoon, not morning, where there are no appointments and I don’t have to see the general public. The best thing is, once you buy the equipment you save that portion every time unless you buy harbor freights super deals torque wrench.
Back to you sitting sheepishly in their waiting area voicing your concerns that you don’t drive over 87 miles an hour, so the flux capacitor doesn’t need to be maintained. You do accept an oil and lubeservice, though! Because a 30-110$ oil change service is less than a floor lift (100$+), 4 jack stands (10-20$ each) and various other things like funnels and oil pans, unless you just dump your oil all over your neighbors driveway, you monster or hero.
Good on you right? Wrong. First off, this oil and lube service may not include an oil filter or air filter. Remember going on your car’s forums and seeing what was what? Generally speaking an oil filter isn’t an upsell you probably need one. However, different oil filters have different bypass rates. That is a nice way of saying stops cleaning your oil and becomes useless, so having the right one is sort of important. Also I mentioned an air filter. If your air filter requires more than popping open a handy box in the engine bay they don’t check it. It is sort of important to check it and you may need to ask them to do it specifically. (Every 10k miles or so). Remember those anecdotal situations? I have a 1.3 liter engine that requires 4.4L oil and a high flow bypass oil filter. The air filter is a pain in the ass to get to. What did the dealership put on my car? An oil filter that fit and 1.3L of motoroil. Fitting does not mean functioning when it comes to oil filters. At this moment you may be thinking that sucks. You are right, as I drove home and the low oil light came on. That evening I spent the 500$ to get all my oil change tools and checked on the rx8club forum to make sure I didn’t screw up further maintenance.
By now you may be thinking why am I, lord of the lift - may your apex seals never fail, at the dealership. Warranty, electrical and hydraulic. Why should I be at the dealership? Warranty.
I hope this article encourages you to work on your car, as I stare at my car that has sat, well washed, in the parking lot in front of me for 45 minutes begging me to ask is it ready yet? These are the magical moments where the answer may always be Miata, but when it comes to car servicing the right answer is always you.