The dealership just called with suggested work that should be done done on my 99 SE-L. Can anyone tell me what is essential or what I can pass on. I am leary of dealerships and what the "suggest". .. Oh the car has 89K miles on it.

Stefnee

1. Transmission Flush
2. Cooling Flush
3. Drive belts replaced
4. Fuel Induction Service
5. Power Steering Flush.

 

1. What if anything was performed at 60k? (if you know)

2. If you don't have any history, items 1, 2, and 3 are all 60k service items and worth doing.

3. What exactly is a fuel induction service?

4. Power steering flush is like this: a) get a bottle of power steering fluid, b) get a turkey baster, c) use turkey baster to suck out old fluid from reservoir, d) top off reservoir with new fluid. See www.motorvate.ca for more info.

One last point. If you like to do things yourself, you can do 1, 2, 3 and 5 yourself fairly easily and save yourself some major $.

 

You could do all of those for a total of about $100 and 2.5 hours of your time.

 

stefnee is probably a girl, and we all know girls don't work on cars.

 

I work on mine. Dont assume.

It make an A.SS out of U and ME.

 

I wasn't assuming anything, I was messing around with MZMTGLPMONPQRSTUV.

 

None of the items are part of the 60K service. These are the items they suggested while doing the service. The service guy did not explain what the fuel induction service was.

 

Like I mentioned earlier - I think items 1, 2 and 3 are maintenance items. Hard to say which ones you need given we don't know when they were last performed on the car. If you don't have any maintenance history of the vehicle, get those 3 done. As for the fuel system cleaning, just go to wal-mart, buy a bottle of Chevron Techron fuel system cleaner, and add it to a full tank of gas... you're done.

 

ok, this is how i have been doing the things you've listed above......

for a tranny flush, don't do it.....just remove your drainplug for the tranny, let fluid drip out (make sure the tranny is at operating temperature) then put the plug back in.....now my nissan place said four quarts would fill it back up but mine ended up taking around 5(probably because i let it drip out for like 30 minutes).....so pour your ATF into the dipstick hole and keep checking the level after about 4 quarts.....you may need to drive around just a little to get an accurate reading...and just keep adding if need be

NOW: repeat the prosess above again after about 100 miles

I ended up repeating mine 3 times and it runs like butter......but this method is cheap and safe since you don't have to drop the tranny pan and mess with a new gasket and stuff like that.....


For your COOLING FLUSH:

just get underneath the car and remove a plastic screw stopper thingy, you'll know what it is when you see it....remove that and along with the radiator cap and you'll dump all the old fluid out of the radiator and resevior....then unscew the resevior and clean that out with a garden hose, the two screws holding it on are against the inside of the fender

Next, replace drain plug and resevior underneath car and refill new coolant through the radiator and fill reseviour tank........drive and around for a minute then check fluid levels

For power steering, the perfect write up is at www.motorvate.ca

 

i also forgot with using my method of cooling flushing, you won't get out all of the old coolant......so i just did my previous process twice

 

http://www.bgfindashop.com/newlook/i.../fuel_serv.php

my dealer charges $129 for this service but its well worth it.

#'s 1 & 2, as njmodi said, if there wasn't any history on when these were done, its better to do them now, #2 esp. if you live in colder climates during the winter

#3, the belts on my Max lasted 106K before being changed, and these were the original belts. Unless you hear squealing when the car is running, then its likely your belts need replacing.

#5, I too was leary on this, but my service advisor told me i'd rather spend the $$ on a power steering flush than on a new steering rack. I had this done, notable diff.