Cost was not an issue in deciding to do my own maintenance. I had a series of bad experiences with dealer service over the years. The first was an oil change for my new 1968 Triumph TR-250 (my second car). On the way home, the oil pressure dropped to zero. The "tech" failed to properly install the gasket in the filter housing and all the oil leaked out. Words cannot describe my anger. I started doing some of my own maintenance soon thereafter. Tire rotations were also a real problem. I took to taking my vehicles only to places where I knew I could watch the "techs." After watching the "techs" do things like scratch my wheels, rotate the tires incorrectly, let the car down with the lug nuts only finger tight, and not use a torque wrench to tighten on numerous occasions, I started doing rotations as well. Have not had a problem since. Every time, in moment of weakness, I decide to give the dealers another try, I regret it. For example, I took my wife's new 2010 Fusion in for its first oil change because it was "free." Got back home and checked the oil level. Barely showed on the bottom of the dipstick. Was almost 2 quarts low in a 5 quart sump. Did the same thing years later with my new 2015 Corvette Stingray. Another "free" oil change. The dealer specialized in Corvette's so what could go wrong? Well there was oil all over the engine compartment and on the seats and center console when I picked the car up. No permanent damage but inexcusable. The one exception to the quality of work issue has been the BMW dealer. You are treated like royalty when you arrive and the work is perfect every time. Wish all dealers were like that. I am terrified of the day when I can no longer do the maintenance and must rely on the dealers.
i have the maintenance package and do the oil changes when its below 20% on the gauge. As for DIY id just get a full synthetic proper weight oil and youd be set. THere really isnt a need for the fancy oil except for the big price difference. I had mobil 1 fully synthetic in my ram from new and then I switched to Redline and didn't notice a difference. Kept the same intervals for both.
I feel the same way. I also like that doing it at the dealer, there is a record online on the mopar site. Good news, though, Mopar.com says> "Great news – there are no recalls for your vehicle." - updated 07-17-2018 LOL no thoughts about QB? - that's kinda what I want to know without actually mentioning it.
About that. I understand that some oils are better than others but I can't get behind claims that it produces better engine performance over other good synthetic oils. Maybe that's why thy always follow up with using the gas additive. that is just my first thought on it.....I can be no gauge for knowledge on oil because I have no clue which viscosity does what and why.
Maybe we have been lucky with our local dealer maintenance-wise. I have taken truck in for routine oil changes and they identified problems I didn't even know existed, and let me know they were covered under warranty. For the truck, it's those 16 spark plugs every 32,000mi that is a daunting task. With the Charger, so far, no problems with the routine maintenance at the dealer. and I see people argue over oils "other" places, but honestly, I'm old and I never have had an engine failure no matter what oil I use. Our last truck was a 2001 Dodge 6cyl, manual transmission with 160,000mi and before the concrete truck incident, the only problem we had with it was the a/c compressor went out.
I once saw a guy post that he uses it because he likes to see the look on the tech's face at the dealer when he brings his own oil with his name on it for oil changes. Seems more of a vanity thing to me. (an expensive vanity thing) This charger is the first car I have ever owned that is getting synthetic oil.
I think my truck gets semi-synthetic at the dealer but then they still put that it needs changed in 3,000 miles or 3 months. It will go in at the 6 month mark. gonna be fun paying the $100+ oil change for the car lol
I dunno why they are still stuck on the 3,000mi thing. We take our truck in every 5k, cause it's an easy to remember interval.
in 1 year and 7 months of owning the truck it has right about 7,600 miles on it. I'm not even driving 3,000 in 6 months lol
Ours is a 2012, got just over 110,000mi on it. For a while, it was our only vehicle. Still runs like the day we got it. On a side note, the only real irritation at the dealer is every time I take a vehicle in for service, within a week or so, I get mail (and/or e-mails) saying how much the would like to buy the vehicle or what a great trade-in deal they will give me. My favorite is when they offer to get us into a new Charger and reduce our payments. I'm like, "Great, our charger is paid off, you are willing to trade us straight across into a new Scat Pack?" That's when they start backtracking..... lol
