30,000 Mile Service Prices
01-26-17, 07:55 PM
#16
Lexus Fanatic
Thread Starter
I have no doubt that the Lexus dealer will actually do the work lol.
And actually youd you'd be surprised to know dealers make more money on service than sales, so even if you didn't buy the car from them, they want your service business.
Big benefit of the independent mechanic is I have no doubt the tech working on the car will be more experienced, given that it's just him and one other mechanic.
And actually youd you'd be surprised to know dealers make more money on service than sales, so even if you didn't buy the car from them, they want your service business.
Big benefit of the independent mechanic is I have no doubt the tech working on the car will be more experienced, given that it's just him and one other mechanic.
01-26-17, 09:08 PM
#17
Pole Position
We are fortunate to have a good independent shop that specializes in Honda/Acura/Toyota/Lexus and they are trusted with the "fleet". The 30K service for the LS460 was $222.
Oil change with synthetic, both air filters, cabin filter, and all of the inspections with tire rotation.
Oil change with synthetic, both air filters, cabin filter, and all of the inspections with tire rotation.
01-26-17, 09:24 PM
#18
That's incredible considering you are in the state of California. Thumbs up.
01-27-17, 02:08 AM
#19
Pole Position
Been thinking about this more, the $499 price is really not terrible. Full synthetic oil change is going to be about $100 wherever you go (even if you bought the oil,yourself it would be $50), $50 to rotate and balance the tires. Up to $150. $50 for each of the filters including part and labor, $250. $100 to flush the brake system. $350. Replacing the battery in the key, say $20 for that, so $370. the inspections and road test, 30 min for that dealers labor rate is $140, so $70. So $440. $499 isn't terrible, and t my dealer I have a 20% off coupon so it's $399. If my independent is $300 or more I may just have the dealer do it.
01-27-17, 07:14 AM
#20
Racer
When I purchased my LX470 around 2012, I did have a Toyota dealership do the crucial timing belt/water pump replacement and also had them baseline all the fluids as it was a 1999 and only had 70,000 miles, but had neither seen a Lexus or Toyota dealer since 2001.
Never thought about Toyota being able to work on something like the LS460 with it sharing nothing with anything offered by Toyota. Things like oil changes, tire rotation and so forth of course I would never give it a second thought. And looking at the description of the 30k service, none of the items outlined would give me pause.
Provided they provide a rental here as well, I will give serious thought about next tome I need an oil change perhaps giving it a shot. That said, my dealer always gives me a loaner car even when only an oil change and the car wash they provide is quite decent and they even provide tire dressing.
For regular oil, they charge $39.99. However, since the PO used full synthetic every 5000 miles since after the factory fill, I will continue to do so. That and I always end up using synthetic anyway.
Never thought about Toyota being able to work on something like the LS460 with it sharing nothing with anything offered by Toyota. Things like oil changes, tire rotation and so forth of course I would never give it a second thought. And looking at the description of the 30k service, none of the items outlined would give me pause.
Provided they provide a rental here as well, I will give serious thought about next tome I need an oil change perhaps giving it a shot. That said, my dealer always gives me a loaner car even when only an oil change and the car wash they provide is quite decent and they even provide tire dressing.
For regular oil, they charge $39.99. However, since the PO used full synthetic every 5000 miles since after the factory fill, I will continue to do so. That and I always end up using synthetic anyway.
01-27-17, 07:23 AM
#21
Lead Lap
That said, I think the $39.99 thing is to obviously find other things to fix like charging a half hour of labor for changing a bloody air filter. I actually just recently let them do that as somewhat of a continued goodwill offering as more often than not I just get the oil change while still getting a loaner. That said, I never have used the well oil and this past time was the first that I did not provide my own. And of course they put in the wrong oil and they had to redo it with TGMO.
01-27-17, 07:36 AM
#22
I have no doubt that the Lexus dealer will actually do the work
Neither did the people whose cars were not fully serviced as shown on the receipt. Trust me, this is far more common than you would like to suppose.
A fave is the $475.00 alignment which somehow didn't disturb the rust & dirt on any of the adjusters.
Neither did the people whose cars were not fully serviced as shown on the receipt. Trust me, this is far more common than you would like to suppose.
A fave is the $475.00 alignment which somehow didn't disturb the rust & dirt on any of the adjusters.
01-27-17, 07:52 AM
#23
Lexus Test Driver
The first price you mentioned actually isn't bad, especially if you consider the going labor rate. I have no idea what it is, assuming it's $150 per hour, for example, there's probably at least an hour of inspection alone for these big services. Two techs to do the brake flush maybe or maybe they have a machine to bleed.
Audi's have huge services every 15k miles as well that cost $800-$1000 for A7 and S7 respectively, when I checked. All just inspection stuff mainly, although you can prepay Audicare and cut that in half.
Audi's have huge services every 15k miles as well that cost $800-$1000 for A7 and S7 respectively, when I checked. All just inspection stuff mainly, although you can prepay Audicare and cut that in half.
01-27-17, 08:28 AM
#24
Great information, thanks for sharing, SW15LS.
Approaching 30,000 miles on my LS, I'm going to have my independent mechanic do this service but just for grins I thought I would call around and get some prices from local dealers for giggles. Oh, I giggled.
So so what is the service? Oil change, tire rotation, flush brake fluid, cabin air filter, engine air filter, smart key battery. Then of course lots of "inspections" of brakes, suspension components, differential oil, so on and so forth. But the meat and potatoes are those items above.
First I call my dealer I usually use, Lexus of Rockville. Their cost is $499. Yikes right? Just wait.
Next i I call my second closest dealer, Lexus of Silver Spring. Their cost? $639.
Next I call Lexus of Alexandria who I've bought cars from before, generally too far away to use for service. $652.
To to close it out I called Lexus of Annapolis where I bought my ES300 back in the day. Nice place, too far for service. Their cost? Are you sitting down? $790
Havent called my guy yet to see what he'll charge me, my guess is $300 or so.
So, call around before you pay for service! I would give the dealer the $500 vs $300, plus I can use a 20% off coupon that brings that delta down to $100. For that $100-200 I get the loaner, the convenience, the nice experience....but $800?!
So so what is the service? Oil change, tire rotation, flush brake fluid, cabin air filter, engine air filter, smart key battery. Then of course lots of "inspections" of brakes, suspension components, differential oil, so on and so forth. But the meat and potatoes are those items above.
First I call my dealer I usually use, Lexus of Rockville. Their cost is $499. Yikes right? Just wait.
Next i I call my second closest dealer, Lexus of Silver Spring. Their cost? $639.
Next I call Lexus of Alexandria who I've bought cars from before, generally too far away to use for service. $652.
To to close it out I called Lexus of Annapolis where I bought my ES300 back in the day. Nice place, too far for service. Their cost? Are you sitting down? $790
Havent called my guy yet to see what he'll charge me, my guess is $300 or so.
So, call around before you pay for service! I would give the dealer the $500 vs $300, plus I can use a 20% off coupon that brings that delta down to $100. For that $100-200 I get the loaner, the convenience, the nice experience....but $800?!
01-27-17, 08:49 AM
#25
A 30,000 mile service can include different things at different shops. Volvo called for valve adjust at 30k in the older cars. They were never out of adjustment and the gaskets were almost impossible to get off so for 15 years the gaskets were given out by the parts department then thrown away by the mechanics. No way management was going to lower the price of a 30k or the parts department not get the sale of the gasket. A dealer can and will add or leave out certain parts of the manufacture's schedule at their own discretion. Also what is done even if its supposed to be included is anybody's guess. The most common things not done are fluid changes like trans and brakes and diffs. Most of the time the air filters and oil are done but who's gonna know if the trans or brake fluid or diff fluids were done? The flat rate system is in place at every dealer. A good portion of the independent shop mechanics work on salary. This doesn't mean they wouldn't skip a nasty job if they thought they would not get caught. I hate to be negative and most mechanics would never skip doing the work but a guy or girl on salary is probably a better bet for the work getting done.
As for Duck05's 30,000 mile service there is no way they did the filters and synthetic oil change and brake flush for $225. Maybe if they used regular oil. Synthetic oil was never used in my car till I bought it at 80k. The dealer who serviced it exclusively used regular oil every 5,000 miles.
Sales, Service, Parts, (Finance, without question the dirtiest seat in the dealership) I have seen it all brother and let me say it is not for the faint of heart. The finance guys would brag about how they would invert the sale price numbers. You agreed on $25,700 with the salesman. They would do the paperwork at $27,500. If caught they would say sorry for the mistake. The finance guy was allowed to keep a good portion or the slight of hand overage. Just like the service advisors got a big piece of the overage they charged customers as they were allowed to charge anybody anything they thought they could get. These were just a couple of the list of tricks the consulting company our owner paid 100k to taught the management at our dealership.
As for Duck05's 30,000 mile service there is no way they did the filters and synthetic oil change and brake flush for $225. Maybe if they used regular oil. Synthetic oil was never used in my car till I bought it at 80k. The dealer who serviced it exclusively used regular oil every 5,000 miles.
Sales, Service, Parts, (Finance, without question the dirtiest seat in the dealership) I have seen it all brother and let me say it is not for the faint of heart. The finance guys would brag about how they would invert the sale price numbers. You agreed on $25,700 with the salesman. They would do the paperwork at $27,500. If caught they would say sorry for the mistake. The finance guy was allowed to keep a good portion or the slight of hand overage. Just like the service advisors got a big piece of the overage they charged customers as they were allowed to charge anybody anything they thought they could get. These were just a couple of the list of tricks the consulting company our owner paid 100k to taught the management at our dealership.
Last edited by Kennyr44; 01-27-17 at 09:08 AM.
01-27-17, 09:26 AM
#27
Lexus Fanatic
Thread Starter
Have you ever considered changing the key batteries and air and cabin filters yourself? It'd probably take you twenty minutes over a weekend and $35 bucks. Then you wouldn't need a "30,000 miles service". You could just drop it off at your independent for an oil change, rotate balance and brake fluid flush...maybe cost you $200-$240. Every Walmart within thirty miles of me carries LS460 air and cabin filters...and my local Walgreens carries the key fob batteries for six bucks. Just a thought. I know you're not going to save yourself a ton of money but these 30,000 mile services seem more like cash grabs to me. I would think your independent could do a rotation, oil change and brake flush in an hour and fifteen minutes of you had an appointment.
Originally Posted by Junglequac
Wow. Wouldn't shock me if it is part of the cost of living thing as after living in relatively expensive places to live to coming back here, I was surprised how much cheaper many things are here.
I'm sure this does happen, but to call it common or typical is a huge stretch IMHO. I've been using this dealer for 15 years, they're expensive but they aren't dishonest.
01-27-17, 01:16 PM
#28
Pole Position
I think I read somewhere that some dealerships are trying to counter the "dishonest" or "incomplete" service reputation by installing large windows or video cams (live streaming) that look into the service bays so that the customer can watch what is being done on their car. Even if the customer is away with a loaner, they would have the option of watching the service on the web. Is this for real? Has anyone experienced this? My St. Louis Lexus dealer does not do either. Of course, many people may have no clue whether the proper work is being done, but it's something. So, I guess we just have to trust the dealer (or an indy shop) to do the work sincerely.
01-27-17, 01:47 PM
#29
Lexus Champion
I've gone both the dealer and independent route for scheduled maintenance. In some ways, if the price differential isn't that great, I'm more comfortable going with the dealer, mostly because of the possibility of CPO issues arising and getting detected during the inspection process, but I make a case-by-case decision. My independent usually has loaner cars available. They are older (typically a decade or more) but nice cars, including a Mercedes E320 and a Lexus LS430. The interiors are well-worn, but mechanically (of course) they are fine.
Still, I'm happy to have the 2016 Lexus NX200t loaner for the week-long vacation my car is having at the dealer. Still, it would take a much nicer replacement than this to equal my 2010 LS460.
Still, I'm happy to have the 2016 Lexus NX200t loaner for the week-long vacation my car is having at the dealer. Still, it would take a much nicer replacement than this to equal my 2010 LS460.
01-29-17, 11:43 PM
#30
Lexus Champion
I think I read somewhere that some dealerships are trying to counter the "dishonest" or "incomplete" service reputation by installing large windows or video cams (live streaming) that look into the service bays so that the customer can watch what is being done on their car. Even if the customer is away with a loaner, they would have the option of watching the service on the web. Is this for real? Has anyone experienced this? My St. Louis Lexus dealer does not do either. Of course, many people may have no clue whether the proper work is being done, but it's something. So, I guess we just have to trust the dealer (or an indy shop) to do the work sincerely.
The following users liked this post:
comotiger (01-30-17)