Nissan's 50,000 KM Service
 

My 2005 Murano is almost due for the 50K interval service. I checked with Nissan and it basically includes the following:

1. Oil and filter change
2. Tire rotation and balance
3. Four wheel brake service (Deglazing and cleaning)
4. CVT fluid change
5. Differential fluid change
6. Basic inspection front to back (hoses, under the car, lights etc)

For all this...Nissan's price is $485 plus tax.

I typically service my vehicles at the dealer only so my question is....is it worth going to CT or elsewhere to get all this done. Price is one factor but i see no point in saving a hundred bucks or so if CT is not reliable enough (considering its not a simple oil change on a civic)

Thanks for your input in advance.

Sal

I had a similar service @ acura a month or so ago, I decided to go with the dealer after considering everything.

If only for the reason that if something goes wrong down the road, I can go back and bitch and they'll listen. Going to CT I've heard and found from friends' experiences is harder to get **** fixed if something goes wrong.

I also had something I wanted them to look at from a warranty perspective...

A lot of that stuff is pretty simply.. I would trust any shop to do these tasks. I suppose disk deglazing is resurfacing ? .. thats pretty expensive might be worth getting a quote.

Hey Sal,
I can only speak from experience . Brought in the fx45 for that service and then 1 month later was charged 1200 to do brakes.... appeared to me like they took the wheels and said look it has brakes ...and then put the wheels back on..interestingly enough had just put on brand new tires a week before away from the delearship and then said they rotated them ( dumb!).... I have not personnally had good experince with nissan/infiniti service


Neil

really? isn't that the same as shaving?

all the other stuff looks very basic..
don't go to canadian tire though.. they're morons

That sounds like a good price and no one knows the car better then the dealership, I'd recommend taking it there, especially for a Murano, you don't wanna skip out on a $30,000 SUV (I know I almost bought one)

Hey

Until your Murano is under warranty, my advice would be to go to them (Nissan), one because if anything goes wrong later on you can tell them off and even get compensation. Two, Canadian Tire sucks A$$, i will never and have never went to them for any vehicle service, they are a joke when it comes to car maintainance, your best bet is either local mechanic shops who fix and tune more cars then Canadian tire does in a day (with no mistakes).

You might have herd stuff from people about how horrible CT is, they make you wait for hours, you have no connection with them, and they usually have young people, teenagers, and interns, working on your car, in my opinion when it comes to a machine you should always get a professional to do the work.

My friend is a BMW mechanic now, and he was working on a friends car, and we were surprised, how well experianced he was after becoming a professional mechanic, he knew the car inside out, where as CT mechanics are good for general fixes, which even that they can't get right. My friend was a Canadian Tire mechanic before he became professionally accredited and joined BMW.


Plus you have the CVT, id let Nissan take care of that. It dosen't matter to me how they treat me or their service is, as long as they get the job done right.lol

Finally, best of luck with your choice, and auto service.:thumb:

thanks guys for your feedback. one thing that i forgot to mention was 'adjustment of electronic throttle' which is also included in the service (and i was wondering if its electronic or ecu controlled, what adjustment it might need). Given all this, i believe its a good idea to take it to Nissan...its not worth the chance to go to CT or elsewhere for all the good reasons you guys have also mentioned. We have a NY road trip coming up later in the month too.

Neil....too bad you havent had a good experience with the Nissan folks. I take my car to Oakville Infiniti/Nissan and over the past two years...they have been all good but 1200 for brakes...jeez that doesnt sound too nice.

The 'throttle adjustment' might be an upgrade reflash for the ecu. When I worked at a GM dealership, we did reflash's all the time. They were simply updates for the ecu. Might be something similar for your nissan.

Most of that stuff is very basic and if your good with a wrench you could do some of that yourself and save a few coin. The other stuff like the cvt fluid I'd leave to the trained nissan technicians. That way the work is backed up and you have someone to blame if anything goes wrong.

I believe you can do your own oil changes and it will not void the warrentee, so I've heard. Just keep the receipts for the oil and filters you buy.

so they change the oil and filter, tranny fluid, and diff fluid for $500. NICE!!! I'm in the wrong business... $80 in fluids, they charge you $500 to do it.

tires are not under warranty, if they wear out the dealer won't replace them. brakes are not under warranty, dealer won't replace them when worn, and lights you can check yourself. so go in there, if you're so worried about it... and tell them... change my oil, filter, CVT fluid, and diff fluid. if they wanna charge you more than $200 for changing all those, then go somewhere else (and be sure to keep your reciepts). think about it, $80 for synth oil and filter, $15 diff fluid, and $50 CVT fluid. and it won't take them more than an hour to do... if it does, their mechanics are gimps.

also, my former boss paid $1200 for brake service on his Grand Am. none of this is uncommon.. price gouging is not news at the service center. a car is a car is a car... if you can work on your civic, there is no reason why you should hesitate to work on your nissan. I've worked on cars, motorcycles, boats... and it all started with peice of crap cars i used to fix for friends before I could even legally drive. get the brake parts elsewhere if they're already worn out at 50K. Canadian Tire has relatively cheap brake parts and they have good warranty, so keep your reciept and usually you'll get free rotors for as long as you own the car. As for pads, instead of paying $200 for OEM ones, just get good quality Monroe from CT (roughly $100)... not the cheap Jasper ones.

have to agree with Bruno here.

I do alot of maintence checks for our good customers. They tell us the dealer wants xx amount and we just laugh. Some of the service intervals are pointless too.

Brake servicing at 50,000km? Unless you have drum brakes (which you dont) it's pointless. In 10,000km or so (depending on how you drive) your brakes are going to be toast, so whats the point in servicing them now? It wont magically extent your brake life by 5000km.

Also tire rotation and balancing, I would be curious to know what they charge for just that service. And unless you have any high KM shimmy a balancing is not needed IMO, but obviously they want to sell it. My guess would be 2/4 of the wheels will be out by like 1/4 to 1/2 of an oz. which is barely nothing

That is where I tool the fx45 they will not touch it anymore ...

dont any of you know what a brake service is? They deglaze the pads, clean up the caliper, make sure nothing is seizing up and lube everything so that the pads can move freely. I do mine evry 10 000km which is a bit excessive, id recommend doing it atleast every 20k. Doing this will make sure your pads wear evenly which extends the life of brakes.

ok i just booked the service with nissan and the only thing i had altered was wheel balancing. the reason for this is i guess that the wheels are just fine and the car drives just right at all speeds so i dont think balancing was needed. that takes off $60 off the service. i wonder now like what the heck....saving 60 bucks for what...but then i thought if i dont need it...so i shouldnt.

the major part the guy told me is CVT fluid change....the car takes 7L of fluid and its quiet expensive i was told.

guess what neil

my car is in for service today for this service. the service guy just called me at work 5 minutes ago and tells me that this service is supposed to be $660 and not $485 as originally quoted.

PLUS

the rear brake pads need replacement plus the rear rotors need to be machined...lol. on a fwd vehicle...the front pads should go first..haha

i obviously said FU and asked them to stop doing what they are doing unless someone can tell me whats going on...lets see. screw these dealers

I wish you luck.........I just don't go there anymore :)

you said it right...im not going there anymore. on top of it all..i called another dealership and was told that nissan recommends CVT fluid change at only 150+KMs and these guys wanna rape me for $200 just for this one item.

did you sign the quote for 485 when you dropped the car off??

also the rear pads and rotors you can do that anywhere doesn't have to be @ the dealership... I got new pads from the dealer and changed 'em myself ... they wanted to charge me $350 to change out the rear pads... i bought the parts for 80... oh and I had to get the rear disc piston compressing cube... that was $12... so for $92 bucks I had 'em changed in under an hour...

1 hr = savings of $258...

only let them do what they need to do...


Altho it's nice to get a car wash in the winter for free with my oil change... lol

people why would you go to the dealer to do some basic maintanence !!.. just go to any garage and they will do it for you , you will end that saving 30% to 50% of the price the dealer quoted you.

Also , I find that the best mechanics are not always at the dealer , back in the days i took 1 semester of mechanics at college and they will place you co-op at a dealership , which basicly means you go to the dealer to do your practices!!! , and this is not a big secret , you can go to any dealer ship and you will find young guys doing the basic services (yes the ones like fluid change, tire rotation , etc), those guys are practicing with your car basicly

The best thing is to find a reliable garage that specialized in hondas (or whatever make you have) , get some references , and that should be good enough.

I been going to my mechanic for soo long and he is great with hondas , and he is honest and cheap. The only mechanic i have known that is willing to go the extra step to save you some money.

one time the whole front pipe fell down and it was impossible to weld it back , i wasn't willing to buy a new one so he got a used front pipe from a different honda which did not perfectly fit , but he cutted off and made it fit , weld it back together , made sure it was perfect. He only charge me 50$ for all that including the old pipe (but in good condition0, the welding and the cutting to make it fit. I had that front pipe for over a year no problem at all.

Most mechanics are not willing to do that , they will just make you buy a new piece