Inspection and oil change

Define " inspection " ...

... check tires & fluid levels & quick visual ? ... pull 4 wheels and inspect brakes ?

... bit of a difference yes ?

John T.

Do not know. Drop off, 4 hours later picked up.

Depends how many quarts and what kind of oil. I've heard of people spending that just for oil change.

State inspection in PA. Pull two wheels to check brakes, exhaust system, ball joints, etc. Should take about 20 minutes.

The better garages will give you a ticky-box check-list when you pick up the car - showing what they inspected - noting & talking to you about any problems found - - often having done a detailed repair estimate. My Kia dealership oil changes includes checking tires ; fluid levels and visual inspection. ~ $ 54. Canadian parts, labour, taxes all in. They will even give it a quick wash-down if needed - no charge. John T.

No road test ? ... there are "inspections" and there are mandated inspections with paperwork ... The OP seems to only knows what it cost him .. ... with no idea what was done. John T.

My stealership just pencil whips it.

Lazy slugs are supposed to check tire pressure at the nnnn mile intervals but turns out they don't bother to check the spare in the trunk.

Since they don't do the simple easy stuff, I doubt they do the stuff that requires effort.  Maybe that's extra?

I wait for the $9.99 coupon to roll around. If I miss it, there's always a $14.99 coupon available.

Did you agree on a price first?

A wash does not make them better. And of course there's a charge for it, it'sjust embedded in the price. Other than that, I agree with you.

A road test is not required in Pa. The owner drives the car. He can test it.

. ... you would know .. :-)

John T.

Firefox not working now, but I assume it says road test. My car was licensed in Pa. unti about 1985 and inspected there, and afaik no one ever gave it a road test. But I guess things have changed. Sorry.

You do have quite a sense of humor. I lived in PA for 36 years and with three cars in the family we had plenty of inspections. The only road test was pulling the car from the parking lot to the garage.

There may be a few legitimate garages but very few. Many never inspected anything but outwardly visible like lights. Other inspected very little but would tell you needed a new drag link or idler arm. Sometimes they even replaced it.

I chose my inspection stations carefully. I went to Frank. If Frank had to pull a wheel he would probably collapse and die. Checking brakes was pushing the pedal while scraping off the old sticker. He did check lights though because if he was being watched, that would be obvious to an observer but his shop was invisible from the street.

My oil changes on the Taurus cost me over $50 doing them myself and buying the oil on special - synthetic oil with premium filter. The ranger is a little less - takes 2 liters less oil - and the Sorento is about the same as the ranger - the filter costs a wee bit more. Put half an hour of labour on at a $90 per basis and that price doesn't look too bad - if they are using synthetic it's actually a REALLY good deal.

Yep.

The main reason I always wrench on my own vehicles

I'm never surprised when they offer to replace the air filter, the cabin air filter, and the wiper blades every time I go in. They have to make money somewhere.

My oil changes on the bimmer are similar to Clare's oil changes, where the equivalent shop rate in the Silicon Valley is never below a hundred and as high as two hundred an hour by way of comparison to home DIY.

The time to DIY isn't an issue since you take your sweet time, and while I've sucked out the oil from the top, long ago I gave up on that since draining is so trivial: a. Drive up on ramps (or chock the rear and jack the front) b. Loosen the oil cap & remove the hollow oil pan bolt & drain c. While draining, go topside & replace the filter cartridge & o-ring

In general, I take an hour or two, since I check other things while I'm there, and I often put the care on four jack stands to rotate the tires and check the brakes, fluids, serpentine belt, and the damn plastic cooling system parts for telltale white deposits indicating leaks, etc.

The time doesn't matter, and the cost is negligible.

I used to buy the Costco synthethic case for around $28 (now around $35 or so on sale) but I then figured dino juice, replaced at standard intervals, is just as good as synthetic for such an old engine (couple hundred thou) so now that's about, oh, around one to two dollars a quart (I forget) at Costco for their Chevron-branded dino juice.

The filters are mail order, Mann (or Hengst or Mahle), at less than five bucks per filter (depending on the sale), where the filter comes with the o-ring but not the o-ring at the oil dipstick nor the hollow drain bolt gasket.

Disposal is easy as O'Reilly's will take back the used oil & filter for free, but I wonder, from a home-repair perspective, if the wooden RR-tie-style steps (pre-treated as I see the dashes all about but they're decades old and bone dry from the California sun) would benefit from an oil soak?

If the oil soak stays within the decades-old railroad-tie style steps, do you see any harm to the environment of simply dumping the used motor oil on the railroad ties, and, if none, do you see any benefit (they're bone dry).

I don't disagree, where it makes sense that someone who doesn't change his own oil likely doesn't know enough to know _what_ to check for by way of the standard maintenance schedule.

Given the shop likely makes money on the "inspection", I always wonder why people _pay_ for that inspection, since, I think, many shops must be giving it away (so to speak) for free.

Don't they?

BTW, adding "rec.autos.tech", so here's the URL to the a.h.r thread: