Fixing your clunker: the dealer or a gas station?

Don't let this happen to you.

I sometimes take my old Subaru, now long out of warranty, to a convenient gas station when it needs new brakes. Sometimes I take it to a dealer for an oil change.

I know that for an oil change it should have a new drain plug gasket, which is cheap; otherwise, the oil tends to leak. The dealer knows that, the gas station doesn't. Once, with a previous Subaru, the gas station said my anti-slip brake thingy was totally shot. The dealer said, nope, it's fine.

There are advantages and disadvantages of having your car serviced at either type of place. The New York Times has an excellent article on this. Here are a few points.

If something goes wrong when the car is under warranty, and we have to return to the dealer, will our warranties be voided? In most cases, no. The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act of 1975 ensures that except in rare instances, a dealer must honor the warranty. You do, however, need to be sure that nothing is done to the car that expressly voids the warranty. Some warranties, for instance, may prohibit specific cosmetic changes. And you want to make sure to keep all service records so that if there is a problem with the car and you need to return to the dealer, you can prove it got regularly serviced. 

Dealers’ initial labor costs are often higher than independents, but their greater expertise and state-of-the art equipment mean the repairs would go faster — and in the end cost less. Dealerships also have access to daily bulletins sharing information about fixing vehicles.

However, car owners who went to dealers for repairs spent an average of $1,209 a year versus $903 for those who used independents. 

Check if the repair shop has a blue seal of excellence — about 400,000 mechanics nationwide do. That means they’ve passed certain exams and have to be recertified periodically. Use the Automotive Service Excellence Web site, www.ase.com. 

Call a few shops, including your dealer and other mechanics, to check prices. Use website to try to diagnose the problem and compare repair costs so you aren’t reduced, as many of us often are, to simply saying, “The car sounds funny.” And don’t be afraid to negotiate.

Other good ideas in the article.

The dealer I use is not that far away. The people there are friendly. They've got all my data in their computer. And they have a pleasant place to sit while I wait. Still, I had my last oil change at a gas station I like.

How often should you change your oil?

The old rule is every 3,000 miles, and it's hung on, but it's not valid anymore. Even the car dealers are suggesting longer intervals -- Toyota says our Highlander should get new oil every 5,000 miles.

Alina Tugend reports:

“There was a time when the 3,000 miles was a good guideline,” said Philip Reed, senior consumer advice editor for the car site Edmunds.com. “But it’s no longer true for any car bought in the last seven or eight years.”

Oil chemistry and engine technology have improved to the point that most cars can go several thousand more miles before changing the oil, Mr. Reed said. A better average, he said, would be 7,500 between oil changes, and sometimes up to 10,000 miles or more. 

The California Integrated Waste Management Board has a list of cars on its Web site and how often they need oil changes.

You'll need to look at how you drive -- stop and go for short distances in town is harder on the car. The reason is that if you take a trip of less than 10 miles or so, the engine and the oil are not completely warmed up. And if the oil is still cool it cannot absorb the contaminants that come from internal combustion as efficiently.

Avoid these pitfalls when buying a car

From Smart Money:

1. “Holdback” allows dealers to pay up to 3% below invoice for vehicles. Here’s how it works: The dealer buys the car from the manufacturer at the invoice price. Then after the car is sold, the manufacturer reimburses the dealer for the cost of keeping it in inventory for 90 days. When a dealer sells the car faster than that, part of the holdback payment becomes pure profit, even if the car is sold at invoice price. “You’ll never get holdback money back from a dealer,” says Burke Leon, owner of BL Auto Enterprises, a Fullerton, Calif.-based dealership that sells nearly-new off-lease cars. But just knowing about it can help when a dealer whines that he can’t meet your price.

2. Some dealers will try to sell you an extended warranty, claiming that the lender requires it. Don’t be fooled. In its online “Facts for Consumers” report on auto-service contracts, the Federal Trade Commission tells car buyers to watch their backs: “If you’re told you must purchase an auto-service contract to qualify for financing, contact the lender yourself to find out if this is true.” The FTC also says that some people have had a hard time trying to get out of a service contract they signed up for thinking it was a standard requirement for their car loan—another good reason to ask questions before any papers have been signed.

3. Car buyers often think they’re showing up at the lot with tons of information they found online that they can use to negotiate – but often that information isn’t helpful, says Phil Reed, an editor at Edmunds.com. Knowing the invoice price of a car, he says, isn’t enough since it isn’t in lockstep with the car’s true market value. True market value pricing takes into account several factors, including a car’s current inventory levels – the higher they are, the more willing a dealer will be to negotiate – the local market sale conditions, hidden pricing details (i.e., all those extra fees that get added on before you sign the contract) and available rebates and incentives.