In article ,
>
> =A0"Cameo" wrote:
> > > The next time someone comes in here and asks a question that's clearl= y
> > > and plainly answered in the owner's manual, I'm going to laugh my ass
> > > off knowing they're getting the royal treatment when they take the ca= r
> > > in for service:
>
> > What if they lost their owner's manual or never got it when they bought
> > a used car?
> > S*it happens. Not everybody bothers to order a new one.
>
> The problem here isn't used cars. =A0It's the "my 2010 FancyDan XLE needs
> its 15,000 mile service; the dealer says it'll cost $600. =A0Is that a
> good price?" or "I just bought this 2011 Family Truckster with the
> undercoating and the sport trim package. What does this button on the
> dash here do?" questions that reveal the need for a Bitch Slap.
Well, yes, but there are some clever maintenance advisers out there. I took my wife's Jeep into a dealer, in Dallas, with the maintenance manual in hand, to do an oil and filter change, and check something. He showed me where there was a "A" and a "B" service, and one was for dusty conditions and should be done because this was Texas. Well, Dallas is hardly the wild west - it's a big city, so I changed to a local shop.
Also in California I took my wife's Jeep in for the 60K service, book in hand, and the shark pulled out a big plastic covered list of what he said was "what we do for the 60K service. It had replacing every fluid in the car. I asked him if I got a blood transfusion with that, and I left there, never to come back.
We now have a 2010 Honda Pilot Touring (to get this on subject) with the countdown to oil change meter reading about 20% so I am about to take it in to the dealer from which we bought the car (through a buying service) and see if they recognize their own maintenance manual. That's the real problem. They know what has to be done, they just add on things that the owner doesn't know about, but usually relents thinking they must know something that he, and the manual, does not know.