OK OK let me explain myself before the berating begins. I have had terrible luck with cars. Always have had significant problems with the engines and the repairs have cost me greatly. Most recently my Chrysler Concorde racked up about 10K in bills for mechanical problems in its short 7 year lifetime. Understanding that I will get to my point.

I am at 7500 miles (after three months and 6 days sadly) and for the first two services I have gone to the dealership. They offer packages that progressively get more expensive as the miles are put on the car. Now I am not stupid, I realize I am grabbing my ankles whenever I return to the dealership for service, but I love my Max and am so paranoid about having problems with it that the cost almost seems warranted.

My question is am I really being stupid here or is there some merit to my concern? Go ahead and tear me a new one...

 

Keep fresh oil and filter in the car every 3k miles. At 30k change the tranny oil and flush the radiator. Keep your ears open for any unusual noises and you should be good to go.

 

Most of those "package" things are 90% full of "inspect" this and that, which means they look at it, which means you could do it yourself. Just like when the Jiffy Lube high-schooler comes waltzing in with your air filter, saying you need to change it, and gee, how convenient, we can do it right now for ya, for $25. Look in your manual and you'll see most of the things you need to do to your car at 10,000, 20,000 and 30,000 miles are inspecting different things, usually you only need to replace oil and maybe some fluids here or there, just get those things done and inspect everything else yourself, unless you dont feel comfortable. Also, the dealer isnt necessarily going to do a better job than your corner auto shop just because they sold the car to you. Its like getting your stereo repaired at Circuit City, where you bought it, doesnt mean they'll do a better job than Bob's Stereo Repair. Shop around, you can do much better than dealer price most of the time.

 

Just change oil and filter frequently (preferably with Mobil 1 and Mobil 1 filter, etc), rotate tires every 7,500 miles. Just go to the dealers for major interval services for 15K, 30K, 45K per service manual items if you really wanted to.....

 

I bought the service package with my car, it is all the scheduled service up to 75,000 or 100,000 miles (I can't remember). This covers everything that is in your book. The oil changes alone paid for the cost of the package, I thought it was a great deal for me since I am lazy as **** and there is no way I will waste my time doing my own service