Hello Scotty and Members,
As a woman it is frustrating to get things done for my car without places trying to sell me other things. Dealerships are the worse. Yesterday took my car in for an oil change and they said for my 2022 Mitsubishi Outlander Automatic basic model with 15786 miles only owned 11 months that I needed an oil flush with relubrication?! They said it's needed after every 15k miles. I dropped off my car and left saying yes. They said it was $100 for this service. I left asked my guy friend at work and he just said call them say don't do that because hes never had to do that to his cars and don't ever go back to that place. Why? Is this truly not necessary? Is this a lie that cars need this? I really hate feeling "dumb" taking my car in anywhere and feel like I should start taking auto mechanics courses at the community College in town so I'm not taken advantage of! I really want to know if this is ever necessary and if not why on earth would a place be that dishonest? How are they not getting in trouble for this? Sorry if I am pushing anything other than my question.
You don't need to "flush" the oil, just change it, and I've never even heard of "relubrication service". (Closest I can think of is back in the old days you'd lube suspension components periodically but not on modern cars.) Sure sounds like a scam to me.
Best to take the car to an independent mechanic for maintenance and keep receipts for warranty purposes.
You should have your oil and oil filter changed every 5,000 miles no matter what they say. As someone with a very high mileage car, I change it between 3k-4k miles. If your oil hasn't been changed at all since the car was new there is still no reason to flush it. Just a simple oil and filter change. I do take my wife's Toyota Sienna to a local dealership to change it because of the stupid oil filter cartridges they use and oddly my personal mechanic will not do oil changes. It's about $70 at the dealership (thankfully my wife drives less than 5k a year) and they always try to sell me more crap but I was able to stop that by talking to management. I have had no issues with them trying to gouge me for every penny since. They wanted to charge over $40 to replace the cabin air filter which takes 1 minute to replace and costs $5 on Rockauto. The dealerships will try to screw you over on maintenance if it's money out of your pocket and not warranty work. If talking to management doesn't solve the issue find another place and make sure your get your oil and filter changed again around 20,000 miles. 😉 Educate yourself on car maintenance on YouTube or Rumble from reliable posters. I have learned so much and can usually fix all my car problems via this forum or other places. Thankfully my father taught me the basics of cars back in the 80's and 90's. Best of luck!
I should start taking auto mechanics courses at the community College
Or watch Scotty’s educational videos -
I'm going to agree with Chuck that yeah avoid a dealership unless if it's something warranty related and they have to perform it. Otherwise find a trusted independent mechanic and have them do the work on your car. Personally I do a lot of the work on my cars myself, but if for whatever reason I can't do it or don't have the time or whatever I take it to my independent mechanic because I know he will do it right and would never charge me for anything not needed. Also, I don't trust dealerships with even being able to do an oil change correctly or using good quality oil and filter. If you want your car to last without problems avoid dealerships and these chain oil change places.
