Saturday, Sep 19, 2009 at 23:57
Yeh, been down that road!
The dealer said my back brakes were nearly worn out and they'd do a disc skim as
well. Told them to hold it. I did a check, and by extrapolation, reckoned I still had another 20k left on the pads. I ended up changing them after about 25k, and then only coz I had the
wheels off, so I reckoned it was about time. The discs were still perfect, and no skimming necessary.
At an earlier service, they reckoned the power steering fluid was very dark and needed changing (this was after about 60k). I argued that the service interval was a lot longer than this, and that my earlier GQ (Mav) went for 250k without a problem with discolouring of the fluid. Ah, yes, was the reply, but the GU is a much heavier vehicle and the power steering works much harder. I pointed out that the GU has an oil cooler that the Mav didn't have, therefore the fluid should have been under less duress, not more.
Well, it's very dark, and it should be changed. They only charged me $80-odd. When I picked the vehicle up, they had a neat little Castrol advertising thingy on the counter with three vials of steering fluid, one very dark, one dark and one normal. Pointing to the dark vial, they reckoned that's what my fluid looked like. Obviously, this was an "extra service" push, promoted by Castrol. I've kept a sample of the fluid after they changed it, and 150k later, the colour still looks very similar in the reservoir to that of the sample.
Why do we get disillusioned with dealers?
cheers,
Gerry
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