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I usually goto dealer for servicing. (Steven’s Creek Honda)
Since sunday I was thinking to post same question. Mainly if you are going to dealer, you go to same dealer as your car make or any dealer. So far we have been going to same make(Honda)dealer. Now Toyota dealership is coming up very close to home so might get tempted to go there.
We go to Firestone in Santa Clara. Usually the service rates for the dealers are higher than other service stations.
For Toyota, go to dealer 90% of the time, once in a while firestone. Had purchased service plan for toyota (covers upto 50,000/30,000(don’t remember the exact miles) or few years) when we bought the car, which turned out to be cheaper. For miata, 90% firestone.
For our Honda used to go to the Honda Dealer. Now go to Firestone for both the cars.
Agree.. Firestone is comparatively cheaper than dealer. makes a difference of sometime more than 100 bucks..
1. If you use the Firestone credit card, there is a discount of 5 to 10% on the bill.
2. On Firestone site , there are coupons that can save few dollars.
3. For oil change with synthetic oil, Firestone charges around $30, the bill for toyota and honda dealers for the same synthetic oil can run around $ 50.
there you go.. an Overhead of CC. You get coupons for Toyota and am sure for other dealers too.
Just in case you were wondering which Tushar is this, this is Tushar of Tushar/Mallika fame.
In General,
There are Dealers (high end) – High labor but factory parts
Volume shops (low end) – low labor price but will use OEM parts (which might be cheap quality)
Mom-pop Shops (Medium) – which have median labor price but use factory parts.
The trick is to find Mom-pop shop but for other parts replacing, repair activites, etc.
I know one in Mt. view for Nissan – Yarnell’s (They repair Nissans and Toyotas only). Very honest guys. I used to go to Yarnells for my Nissan’s.
Examples of Volume shops ?? (So that we can avoid them)
Have seen coupons from Yarnell’s but don’t recollect them being any cheaper than the dealer coupons. Also w.r.t dealers, check with multiple dealer locations since they may give a different quote. If using coupons, dealers do honor the coupons from other dealer locations.
Bhavini are you talking abt Honda dealers when u say they dont accept other dealer coupons.
As far as Toyota is concerned or to be more specific Stevens Creek Toyota is concerned they do accept other dealer coupons only if they are from the same state. I have used it just 3 weeks back.
Among the sea of raised hands and cries of “Me”, “Me”, Can i be the first one to “Kaan kay neechay bajane kay liye” of Nitul’s ear. (in this case eye, rather than ear).
Go ahead Prashant, may be he needs glasses now to differentiate do and don’t 🙂
Volume Shops include Walmart, Gas Stations, POurfect Auto service chain, Jiffy Lube chain, etc (at least – these shops have cheap quality oil filters – hence can offer cheaper prices).
For a DYI, you can get quality oil filter form teh dealership and install it. In fact for most of the Toyotas, it is easier, since the oil filter can be changed from top of the hood instead of going under the car 😀
C/DYI/DIY
C/POurfect/Purfect/
After this thread, I took my car to firestone for couple of services. I am not too impressed with firestone.
Recently for my Altima, I decided to try a local mechanic store. Alvin’s Auto center in Milpitas after reading some reviews of course.
http://local.yahoo.com/info-21565646-alvins-auto-center-milpitas
In my search for a local mechanic I came across
Fremont United Auto Service in Fremont which had really good reviews.
http://local.yahoo.com/info-21437041-fremont-united-auto-service-fremont
http://www.yelp.com/biz/fremont-united-auto-service-fremont
Unfortunately its a bit far for me, but for people in Fremont, this could be a real option instead of Firestone or the dealer.
prashant, how much did Alvin charge you for oil change? I generally go to walmart and there’s is around 20 bucks.
I went there for my 90K mile service.