The automotive maintenance services you should never buy

Hey folks, Lenny Lawson again, probably the only new car dealer that you know, which is

not that big of a deal, but it can be very helpful.

And it's my job to prove that every time you listen to me.

So that's what I'm going to do today.

As a matter of fact, I'm going to continue a trend.

I started it last week, and that show was titled the use car that you should never buy.

Yesterday's show was the new car that you should never buy.

If you want to listen to those, then just go to Apple Podcast or Google

Podcast or just Google the My Car Guru podcast, and it will come up more than likely.

So in honor of that trend, I'm going to continue it.

But this particular episode is the auto service that you should never do or pay

for because there are some things that, well, it's basically some behaviors and

some strategies that new car dealers are using to boost something called fixed coverage.

So what is that?

Well, in the typical car dealership, we divide the accounting basically into variable

operations and fixed operations.

Variable is the sales and the, well, new car, used car and finance departments.

Okay.

And fixed operation is the parts department, the body shop, if they have one,

and the service department.

Fixed operations in the typical car dealership should cover 75 to 80 percent of

the fixed overhead of the business.

So the rent and utilities and all that stuff.

There are variable expenses that it's not responsible for.

We don't count in that calculation.

But you can imagine if you had a really big service and parts operation, really

big wholesale parts business that you provided parts to a bunch of different

body shops and service departments, you know, independents all over a region.

It's possible to put, push that fixed coverage up to 100 percent.

Matter of fact, we had a dealer in a group that we were in called an NADA 20 group

where 20 dealers get together and share ideas and so forth.

His fixed coverage was 140 percent.

So in other words, he could not sell a single car and still be very profitable.

But the average dealer is somewhere between maybe 70 percent to, well,

there, I know, I've seen, well, I've actually been in a car dealership or

owned a piece of one that the fixed coverage was only 45 percent, which was awful.

I mean, you had to sell a bunch of cars to even get the break even.

So anyway, that dependency on the service operations, the fixed operations has

led to some naughty behaviors in the service drive.

And that's where I want to focus because, you know, you buy a car like

once every three to 20 years, you service it, hopefully on a regular basis.

A lot of people defect, right?

And they go to an independent shop where they go to a fast lube operation,

even when they shouldn't, but they do that because of a couple of reasons.

Convenience, access, and they think it's cost.

It's not so much cost anymore, but when it comes to complicated repairs,

there are certain things that only a car dealer, a new car dealer with a

franchise can fix.

The independence, the vast majority of independence do not have the tools

to take care of these things.

So many customers become dependent on that new car dealer.

And I think that's a great place for you to continue to visit because they

have the tools and equipment and the training to maintain your car the way

it needs to be.

And when you sell your car and you can provide the future buyer with a

complete list of every time you had a wrench turned on that vehicle, or if

you have a out of warranty situation and let's say you're 20,000 miles out

of warranty and your engine fails at no fault of your own, you maintain the

vehicle properly.

If you are nice and if you ask and you report that to customer assistance, go

to the dealership and try to get something taken care of.

If you were a regular customer of that dealership and had all your maintenance

work done there, more than likely the factory is going to step up.

They may not pay for everything, but they'll pay for parts.

Maybe you pay for labor or they'll split it 50-50.

They'll come up with some type of arrangement with the goal of keeping

you as a customer.

I mean, let's face it, a lot of people, if you have a major failure with a

vehicle, that could cause you to defect from that brand.

You know, you have a bad experience.

Let's say you have to take it in four times and get the same problem fixed,

and they just never get it exactly right or they don't treat you right.

There could be a lot of reasons why somebody defects from a dealership, and

I would defect as well.

But one of the first mistakes people make is to start taking their vehicle when

it runs out of warranty, taking it someplace else, or while it's under

warranty, they start going to the Jiffy Lube or someplace like that just out

of convenience.

So in service departments, it could be in an independent shop or it could be in

a new car dealership.

Some of the things that people waste money on in the service department are

first unnecessary flushes.

Now, we've talked about this.

You go, you know, some of the worst dealers about this are Toyota and Honda dealers.

They want to flush everything because it's a big profit center for them.

But if you look in the owner's manual, the only flush that the manufacturer

will typically recommend is the cooling system.

Get all the old coolant out, flush it, power flush it, and then put in new coolant.

But transmission flushes, power steering flushes, brake system flushes,

those are not recommended by the manufacturer and are just simply profit

boosters for the service department trying to get their fixed coverage up.

So you don't need to do that.

You don't need to waste money on those.

I do agree with the cooling system flush.

I think that's an essential thing.

And I would do that somewhere around 50,000 miles, probably every 50,000 miles.

Manufacturer says that your coolant is good for, oh, 100,000 miles.

Hogwash.

Okay, another thing that you should never buy in the service department is too

frequently changing your oil.

I know that sounds weird.

Lenny is telling you to change your oil every 5,000 miles.

And that might sound frequent to you.

It is very important.

That's my recommendation every 5,000 miles, regardless what the owner's manual says.

And I'm not trying to sell oil changes for my competing dealers or any dealer,

for that matter.

I looked at my brother bought a BMW one time and said, change the oil at 15,000

miles. That's another hogwash.

So used to back in the olden days, back 70s, 80s, even back in the 60s,

they said, change your oil every 2,000 miles.

And that was pretty frequent.

Why did it change?

How come the manufacturer sometimes says you can change it every 7,500 to 10,000

miles or when the light comes on that says, change your oil.

Well, engines today in engineering has been able to do that.

They've been able to manufacture engines that have much tighter tolerances.

There is less blow by.

That's something that happens when combustion gases sneak past the piston

rings and they get into the crankcase and it dirties up the oil.

Oil has less contaminants in it than it used to.

It's a more refined product and they have all these advanced coatings that they

put on metallic surfaces.

There's better engine cooling now than there was.

That's regulated by the computer system on the vehicle and you got better oil

pump designs, better control of moisture and fuel vapor contamination.

So basically there's less soot and less carbon entering the oil and you got

better engine management before you had none in the old days.

And now you have a computer adjusting the air, the fuel mixture,

just all kinds of things, the cooling, temperature in the engine.

So that's why you don't have to change your oil as often as we used to.

But still, if cars sit for long periods of time or you drive the vehicle in

an aggressive manner, a lot of starts and stops, it can put a lot of stress on

the engine oil where it doesn't protect your engine.

So you want to change it like every 5,000 miles, like I say,

and get your tires rotated at the same time.

It's just an easy way to remember things, but, you know, you don't need to

change it too often and you don't need to wait too long to change it.

So I hope that makes sense.

Also, they may try to sell you some type of a premium oil, like a full synthetic.

When it's not needed, if the engineers that designed your car says that it needs

to use a synthetic blend or a conventional oil, that's what you need to use.

They're smarter than you are.

They're smarter than a lot of people on those forums that try to tell you,

oh, go full synthetic, you know, pay $150 to $200 for an oil change.

When it's not necessary.

Now my Porsche 911, full synthetic.

Certain Japanese vehicles, Korean vehicles, Hondas, Toyotas, they, they

like full synthetic.

And if they say it and you need to use it, okay, I'll be back in just one

minute.

You know, sometimes it just pays not to believe everything you hear.

Do a little research.

I tell you what the best thing you can do is just read your owner's manual.

If you bought a used car and don't have one, then you can get one online.

They'll send it to you.

Somebody, I don't know who they are, but they're available.

And you can probably get a PDF version of your manual.

Just read the maintenance section.

Look at the recommended maintenance intervals, you know, when certain things

are supposed to happen and follow that.

And if the dealership that you're having your vehicle serviced at or the

independent shop tells you something otherwise, just say, no, I don't want that.

I don't need that.

I don't need a power steering flush.

I don't need to break system flush, you know, and when you get to 50,000 miles,

go ahead and have your cooling system flushed.

Well, we don't recommend that.

We just go ahead and do it.

Lenny Lawson said to do it.

Who's he?

Well, he's the car guru, but never mind.

Okay.

What else?

I'm hearing that a lot of people are being told that they need to replace

their brake pads and have their rotors turned before they need it.

Now, you know, if, if you're replacing brake pads at six to eight millimeters,

just because the advisor says, well, if they're getting kind of low, you

need to ask them the question, well, how many more miles do you think I can go

before it gets into the rivets and they'll say, well, you know, you probably

go another five or 6,000 miles.

Okay.

Then I'm going to go at least another three or 4,000 miles and then I'll come

to see you, you know, postpone it if it's reasonable.

But see a lot of these technicians that work in these places, they're

paid an incentive for upsells.

Okay.

And if they can get you to buy brake pads more frequently than you need to,

then they make more money.

I know it's just the world that we live in.

So as far as turning the rotors, you know, if, if my rotors are nice and

smooth, that's what the brakes kind of clamp down on to stop your vehicle.

That's the shiny white part that you can see.

You have a brake caliper that you can see and it kind of sits on top of the

rotor and then a rotor is, is shiny.

And if you run your finger on it and it's really smooth, you don't need to

turn your rotors.

When I say turn them, they take them off the car, they put them on a brake

lathe and they cut off a little bit of metal.

They basically are putting a slick surface back on it.

And the only time you do that is if those rotors have little grooves in them.

You know, if you can fill grooves with your fingernail, you probably need to

get your rotors turned, especially if you're putting on new brake pads.

You don't put new brake pads on rotors that are all grooved.

You just don't do it.

But now if you turn your rotors, if you haven't turned once and then you keep

the car long enough to get another brake job, you might not be able to turn them

again, they get really thin.

And when they get thin and you use your brakes and the brakes heat up, then

the brake, the brake rotors tend to warp.

And that's where you feel when you put your fill on the brake, you feel it

pulsating every time you stop.

It's very irritating.

But that's because that your rotors have gotten too thin and you might have to

replace them, but you need to know these things.

You don't need to replace rotors or turn rotors if they don't need to be.

Ask them if it's essential.

Ask them if it will make a big difference.

Usually it won't.

But if they tell you they're really badly grooved, then you need to have them

turned.

Okay.

Okay, what else should you not pay for?

You know, if they're willing to put in a new cabin air filter, most cars have

cabin air filters, and that's just designed to filter the outside air so

that when you're inside the car, it won't contaminate your lungs.

So, you know, you can open your glove box.

That's typically where the cabin air filter is.

Sometimes they're out underneath the hood on the firewall itself, but usually

they're in your glove box or below your glove box.

You just open it up, pull the filter out, look at it, you know, if it's, if it

looks clean, then I wouldn't worry about it.

But if it's, if it's dark, you know, it's, it's full of pollen and crud,

environmental crud, then replace it.

But, you know, you don't need to pay labor to have that done.

Just tell them I'll buy a cabin air filter and I'll just put it in myself.

You know, if they say, well, they're asking them how much the charge is to

replace your cabin air filter.

And if they say, well, the labor is $30.

$30 for like 30 seconds of work.

No, thank you.

Just sell me a cabin air filter and I'll put it in myself.

Fair enough.

Okay, we'll put it in for free.

Thank you very much.

But how often should you replace your cabin air filter?

You know, that's how often should you replace the filters in your HVA system at

home? We replace ours every month, but you don't need to do that in a car.

Does it need to be replaced every three months?

You know, every oil change or something like that.

I don't think so.

Maybe every six months.

So it's just depends on where you live and how dusty it is.

I'm sure if you live in a real dusty state, like I would assume Arizona,

Texas, you know, places like that, then, you know, maybe more often.

Okay, another service that you might not want to pay for would be some type of a

fuel system service.

If you're not having any symptoms, if your fuel economy is just fine, your car is

not hesitating, it's accelerating fine.

It feels like it has plenty of power.

There's no reason to pay for a fuel system cleaning.

Now, injectors do get crudded up.

There's no doubt about it, but you'll know it.

Your check engine light will come on.

You'll have your fuel economy will drop.

You'll have, you know, some performance related symptoms, but that's just a

service that they like to sell.

And it's just something that you need to really ask some more detailed questions,

whether it's really necessary or not.

Again, if it says do it at a certain interval in your owner's manual, then do it.

Pay attention to what the engineers say in Detroit or Japan or wherever.

So Korea, but the service advisors, sometimes they are just trying to sell something.

Okay, alignment recommendations.

You know, your front end alignment is important.

If your vehicle is out of alignment, your, your tires, your front tires are going

to wear out sooner than they should.

Sometimes they'll wear out on the outside edges, the inside edges.

And sometimes it's just a tire inflation issue.

You know, don't let them sell you a $120 front end alignment or four wheel

alignment if the only problem is the fact that your air pressures were low.

So that's just something you need to know.

They may charge you to put the vehicle on an alignment rack just to see if it's

in alignment.

And if it is, then, you know, the charge won't be as much, but if they have to

make a bunch of adjustments, then it's good that you found that out.

So one of the things you can do is go, like my dealership, for example, we have

a laser scanner when you drive into the service drive, it automatically checks

your toe in and either your camber or your caster.

I can't remember which, but two of the major measurements for alignment and it

measures that and we don't have to put it on a rack and it's free.

So if you can go to a dealership that has one of those things, then you don't have

to pay for an alignment check.

And one other area that you have to watch and not pay for services that you

is a dealership that is notorious for being parts changers.

Now, how do you know this?

Well, I guess you could look at their Google reviews.

In many cases, this is a store that is really, really fast paced and the

techs don't want to waste a lot of time fixing things.

They just want to replace parts.

So you come in with a check engine light and all they're doing is throwing

oxygen sensors at you and PV, PCV valves and all kinds of other things that you

don't know anything about map sensors.

And they're not really addressing the problem.

I mean, I've seen so many issues where somebody gets, takes their car to get

it worked on someplace else, some independent shop and they can't fix it.

And it goes to another independent shop and they can't fix it.

There's my alarm going off.

And then they finally bring it to us.

We tell them that there's a one hour diagnostic charge.

They said, that's fine.

I've thrown a bunch of money at it already.

We hook our computer system up to it.

It tells us where to go.

We check all the things that they said they thought was wrong with it.

None of them are bad wrong.

Everything's fine.

But there is a problem and it's because there's a short, just one little wire

that's just not seated good and triggering a check engine light.

So I guess the moral of the story is don't go to some shop that's just going to

throw a bunch of parts at a problem and not solve it.

They clear the codes.

They install those parts.

You pay the bill and the check engine lights off.

But a week later, there it is again.

Car starts running bad and you get mad and you go back and they throw up their

hands and you should have gone to the new car dealership to begin with.

Okay, I'll be back in just one minute.

Okay, here's a fast run through of other things you should never pay for.

Like nitrogen, you don't need pure nitrogen in your tires.

We used to think that that was the thing to do because we were told that

nitrogen molecules are fatter and don't leak out as quickly as nitrogen and

oxygen combined, which is what we breathe in the air.

No, pure nitrogen was a way to keep your tire pressures up.

And it did make a difference.

I have to say it did make a difference.

But what's that worth paying for really?

I mean, is it worth $9 a tire?

I don't think so.

I think some people probably pay for new tires before they're actually do.

Tires age out, you know, if your tires are over seven years old, you're

supposed to replace them according to the tire manufacturers.

But is that just so they can sell tires?

I don't think so.

I think most of the automotive magazines and the mechanical recommendations

that I have seen over the years say that that's a valid thing because

rubber breaks down over time.

So that's what I go by.

I bought a 57 Chevy not too long ago.

The tires were put on 20 years ago when the vehicle was restored.

I didn't want to be riding down the road at 60 miles an hour in that thing.

And 20 year old tires, they looked fine.

They had plenty of tread, but I replaced them and you should too.

But if you have good tread depth, I mean, more than three or four 30 seconds

of an inch, and you can measure that if you have a ruler or a Lincoln penny.

Yeah, that's a good use for a penny.

Just take the penny, turn it, turn Lincoln upside down and stick his head

down in the tread of your tire.

If you can see the top of his head, your tires are worn out because that's

two 30 seconds of an inch.

There are treadwear indicators in between the treads.

And if you're down to that, that's also two 30 seconds of an inch.

Didn't know that, did you?

But if they're more than seven years old or you're down to the treadwear

indicators or you can see the top of Lincoln's head, then you need to get new

tires, otherwise keep riding on them.

So these are the major ways that people waste money.

Another way is just not getting a second opinion if you have a major problem.

And I wouldn't insist on that.

What do you have to pay somebody to come from another shop and inspect

a vehicle in somebody else's shop?

You know, it's not something that a lot of shops like to do.

Shop owners don't want to take anybody off.

But I mean, if they're asking you to spend seven or eight thousand dollars,

I don't care, you know, I'll pay him $250, $300 to come do an inspection

and give me a second opinion.

And sometimes insurance adjusters will do that.

They have mechanical repair specialists that you can pay to come

diagnose or give a second opinion on a repair.

And I don't know what they would charge for that, but that's something

that I'm going to be willing to do, especially if I have nobody else

that I can depend on.

You don't have a guru living in the house.

But you do have me.

If I can help in any way, you know how to reach me.

Text me 423-552-2020 or send me an email to LennyLawson2020 at gmail.com.

I'll see you next time.

The automotive maintenance services you should never buy

About this episode

fixed operations

variable operations

cooling system

oil change

engine tolerances

blow by

engine management

full synthetic oil

Porsche 911

recommended maintenance intervals

brake pads

rotors

brake caliper

cabin air filter

fuel system cleaning

fuel injectors

check engine light

fuel economy

alignment recommendations

front end alignment

tire inflation

alignment rack

toe in

camber

parts changers

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