Dealer maintenance on '06 Civic sedan
 

Hi my car is currently at around 54000km and the maintenance minder is suggesting a B1 service (oil change, tire rotation, brake service.. etc), and the dealer also told me I will need to change my p/s fluid . The total cost for the service is suppose to come out to around $290ish.

Does anyone know if my warranty will be voided if I take my car to a non-dealer shop? Because I think $290 for a service seems rather expensive for a civic, and they are not doing anything special anyways. Also will the independent shop be able to reset the Maintenance minder? Any suggestions on where to take the car for service?

Thanks in advance for any answers~

You have a FD and think 290.00 is expensive? It's just that that was my initial reaction to someone who already knows how expensive a FD is to maintain.

reseting the maintenence minder is the easiest thing.. read your manual, or...

turn key to on/or have car running..
press the reset button until u see the oil life
press and hold that same button for 10secs or so until u see the oil life start flashing
let go of the button and press again and hold for another 5 seconds.. it should be back to 100%

i think you should read the diy section on 8thcivics.com and do it yourself.
it will save you a lot of money and you can learn something about your car too.

Thanks for the answers regarding how to reset the maintenance minder~ My real questions is really about whether or not doing my own servicing (or go to a non-dealer shop) would void my warranty. As I am recently getting a CEL on the civic, and I don't want them to have any excuse to void my warranty.

and this is not about servicing my FD~ it is about my DD Civic~ The more money I can save on the civic means more money for the FD :) And I also think it is expensive because I had a Mazda3 and regular maintenance only cost around $60....

labour alone on a b1 is $150+/-, p/s service is another $5-60 of labour. so thats already $200 in labour.. well those are my rough calculations of $103/hour labour at the honda i work at. add in parts, misc shop charges, taxes, etc..

I'm not sure how Honda is, but at Nissan they told me that every other service is the cheaper one.

My car has a little less than 10k on it now, but my 5k service cost me about $57, my 10k service cost me $190

I'd say its not too expensive. I always look at it like this, if I take it to the dealer and something goes wrong, they can't pin anything on me. However if I were to take it elsewhere for service and something goes wrong they can use it against me

everyone always has this pre-concieved notion about maintenance is always better done at the stealership in case something goes wrong.

find a trusted independant mechanic who charges a fraction of what stealerships do and have them do the work if you don't want to do it yourself

keep the reciepts, and should something fail and the dealer is an ass, show them the paperwork and tell them to pound salt.

$200+ for "inspections" is ludicrous and lucrative

No, getting maintenance done somewhere else will not void your warranty. Just make sure you keep records.

However, it's true that if you generally have a long service history with a particular dealership, they will usually be a bit easier to deal with when it comes to having problems fixed under your warranty.

I never took my cars to the dealer for service. As long as the shop stamps your book and documents it, you are ok. I did this even when I was leasing my rsx and it was ok.

o, the nissan i work at goes by 6k intervals..

Thanks for answering my questions~ I will make sure I keep all the records.

Void warranty, no. But if you have a CEL I would pull the code and see what triggered it and fix it (if necessary).

i actually had the dealer fix the CEL once, but it came back the next day

if its been fixed by the dealer, go back and complain that the light came back on.

^^+1 then ask for freebies after

If you are plenty to keep the car (ie not lease).. then it makes sense to build a relationship with the service department.. ie get to know a service adviser via visiting them regularly. If crap happens (eg tranny going, which the civic generation is known for).. then the regular "extra" you pay to the dealership for service will pay off enormously. Because they will view you as a regular customer and stand up for you.

^ civic tranny being a known problem? lawl.

all i will say on this subject is, you get what you pay for. dealer serviced cars sell for more, last longer, and perform better the whole life of the car, you didnt buy a $23 000 plus car to service it like you would a kia