Non-dealer maintenance - Page 3

 
Oil can be had for somewhat less than 10$/liter, and the fact that it's
not considerably less is more related to the USD/EUR exchange rates than
taxes/overhead. Plain mineral oil can be easily had for less than 5.

Of course there's stuff for 50+. But I wonder about the percentage of
snake oil in that...

In the end the engine is probably what fails least often in a car. After
all most are decommissioned due to accidents or damage economically not
worth fixing. That may be, at the right spot, something rather minor
like a brake job, or switching a broken windscreen, or something
similar. One seldom hears of engines dying of mechanical wear (as
opposed to broken belts or similar stuff).

Part of the ecological appeal of Prius is, in my view, to reduce waste.
So, while not wanting to cut corners on maintenance, I'd prefer paying
twice the price on oil that can stay in twice as long.

cu
  .\arc

  "Tomes" ...

Reading on this can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_oil
look down in the Service Classes section.
Tomes

 Tomes wrote:

Is that for oil changes?
I think the oil is made to the same standard.

We once ran SOAP (Spectroscopic Oil Analysis Program) on
our fleet cars, and I put my samples through it as well.
There was no reason to change oil more often than every
10,000 miles - in fact, when we tried synthetic there
was no significant difference in the fluid after 10,000
miles.

 In article
 marco@loyola.edu wrote:


There are multiple aspects to this:

1. It is a good idea to use a Prius-certified technician.  They are not
all at dealers, some of them are independent.  The Prius has enough
unique stuff that you do want someone with special knowledge looking it
over at least once in a while.  The 60,000 mile mark is a good time for
it.  Also, the scan system is proprietary; ordinary scan tools will not
completely diagnose all problems.

2. Don't ever tell a dealer that you want his X miles service.  You will
be charged for everything under the sun, including a lot of stuff that
can't even be done on a Prius.  Instead show the service writer the X
miles page in your copy of the Prius scheduled maintenance guide, and
tell them that you want that stuff only, no more and no less.