Kurtz

iTrader: (1)

Did ya miss the part where the transmission is a sealed system and you can't actually do a fluid change?

jbjones85

iTrader: (20)

DIY, parts cost less than $150 and it takes a few hours.

kyoso23

These cars are not that hard to do the basic maintenance stuff on guys, if you're any kind of mechanincally inclined you can do all of this stuff with factory parts for a fraction. Especially with the writeups here on CL. I will say this though, don't skimp on any of it if you plan to keep the car for awhile or are like me and take pride in your possessions. There's a reason these things are recommended.

calvin2376

iTrader: (2)

I definitely want to do the spark plugs, especially since the parts are only $78 and dealers are quoting at minimum twice that price. Labor time they're quoting is reasonable given the time it takes to remove things to get access to the engine, but I don't want to pay their hourly labor rates, so I'm inclined to do it myself, just worried since it's my first time doing a job like this on a car.

chikoo

My mechanic charges me under $100 labor to change spark plugs.

98023IS250

yes I did..

calvin2376

iTrader: (2)

Just wanted to post a tip to those out there who do NOT want to replace the spark plugs yourself and will be having a dealer do it. Please don't flame about how everyone should DIY etc., that's not the point, this is just a tip I came across to those out there who plan to take their car to the dealership for it.

I've been trying to decide whether to do the spark plug replacement myself or not, and in doing so I've been contacting local dealers to ask their parts and labor costs for the spark plug replacement. The majority of the cost is labor, as it's fairly time-consuming to gain access to the spark plugs as the air intake box and other components have to be removed. Dealers have also however been quoting me high prices for the parts themselves, sometimes up to $150 when the spark plugs themselves are only $78 from Sewell. This isn't the main point, but if you find a dealer wanting to charge you more than $78 for the spark plugs parts themselves, just buy from Sewell and bring them to the dealer.

In contacting one of the dealers they told me labor was about 2-3 hours' worth, but that I could save on almost all that labor if I was bringing my car in at the same time for the fuel pressure sensor recall, since they have to remove almost all the same components to gain access to perform the recall as they do the spark plugs. I was pretty surprised the dealer actually suggested a method of cutting down MY costs, which was quite a decent move on the dealer's part.

The tip here is that if you're due for the spark plug replacement and you plan on bringing your car into a dealer for it, if at all possible do the replacement at the same time as a service that requires the removal of the same parts (air intake box, etc). The two things that come to mind are the fuel pressure sensor recall and the cam gear replacement TSIB, but there are likely others. The latter came to mind because unfortunately (but somewhat fortunately in this case) my car just started exhibiting the grinding start up noise, which means the cam gear TSIB likely needs to be performed, which requires removing the same parts as the spark plug replacement, which means I should save about $200-300 on labor at the dealer. In light of this, I'll probably just go ahead and have my dealer do it since I should pretty much only be paying for parts - if this hadn't been the case, I'd probably DIY.