My Fiancee Taking Her Car To The Lexus Dealership For Service Is Killing Me

Today I found myself at the Lexus dealership for my fiancee’s regular checkup of her 2017 RX350. She seems to enjoy going to this dealership, and since I know there’s (resale) value in her continuing to have that car serviced there, I don’t protest. But here’s the thing: Sometimes the dealership suggests expensive repairs that I can do myself for cheap. But I’m starting to get the impression that my fiancee, Elise (not her real name) would rather just have the dealer do it, especially since my last few repairs haven’t quite gone…swimmingly. Here, allow me to voice a few excuses.

For the longest time, I’ve been doing my own work on my cars. It’s saved me bundles, and — at least when it’s relatively easy stuff like brakes and wipers and batteries — I quite enjoy the wrenching. But now I’m no longer dealing with just my own cars; my fiancee is bringing a Lexus into the family. Specifically, an RX350. And her usual practice of taking it to the dealership and having them fix what needs fixing is something that bothers me deeply.

I’ve mentioned this before. The amount of money you can save fixing a car yourself instead of having the dealership do it is insane. A few months ago, we got this quote from the dealership:

$1,120.78 plus tax, so about $1,200 all-in for a basic brake job?! No way. I ordered up the best parts I could find from Advance Auto Parts:

“

That only cost me about $400, saving us $800 in total — a total no-brainer  Also a no-brainer was the 12-volt battery replacement; I bought a new black brick from Costco and installed it. That seems to have worked well. Then I swapped out the wipers, front and rear. I bought these highly-rated wipers from Amazon:

This all seems well and good. I’m saving us money, helping us get on a path towards prosperity! But lately, I’ve hit a bit of a snag. I think Elise (not her real name) has lost a bit of faith in my wrenching skills, and through no fault of my own! OK, maybe it is my fault to some degree, as I’m reading forum posts now from Toyota folks who say: Just buy OEM parts.

In the Jeep world, you can buy a cheap Autozone part and it’ll almost certainly be no problem I’ve founded after 15 years of wrenching on Jeeps. But it seems that there is a significantly higher percentage of Toyota owners who go OEM. I think, based on my rather limited examples, I’m starting to understand why now. When it came time to replace Elise’s brakes, I went to Advance Auto and got its top-of-the-line Carquest Platinum/Premium pads and rotors. I’ve never had any issues with these, and installing them was a breeze. All the brackets and holes in the rotors and brake pad backing plates fit exactly how they should. I was diligent with installation, I cleaned the hub to make sure it was flat, I used grease where it made sense, and on and on. It was a basic brake job.

And yet, a mere 4,000 miles later the rotors seem to be trashed. There’s tons of brake dust building up on the wheels, and when I tap the brakes at 70 mph, the steering wheel shudders. The windshield wipers, too, are terrible, leaving streak marks all over the glass.  My two most obvious repairs had failed, and I think Elise wants to go back to just having the dealer do the job. If I were her, I would, too.

So I’m trying to figure out how to salvage this, because I do think doing our own brake and suspension work is going to save us a bundle long-term. Right now I’m in a weird spot, because the dealership is telling us “hey, this is wrong with your car,” Elise asks me for my opinion, and I naturally always say “I got this.” And it feels like there’s some doubt there from her and some judgement from the dealer. And I’m just there…sitting in the dealership feeling supremely awkward.

Sot I need to step it up; this ain’t some old Jeep I’m dealing with, I’m working on a modern Lexus that needs to be extremely safe and comfortable, and that needs to pass the scrutiny of a dealership that has incentive to instill a bit of doubt in Elise’s mind about my wrenching skills. I just need to remind myself how much I’m saving on labor as I fork over Benjamins to the Toyota parts counter.

And that’s not even addressing another pressing issue, which is: At what point do I just let a shop work on our cars? Time is becoming harder and harder to come by, and while I still am fundamentally opposed to shelling out 1200 bucks on some basic brake work, it’s possible I’ll have to change my mind on that someday as I run out of moments left to spare. I’m no longer a single man with 14 cars and nothing but time.

And then there’s the fact that her dealership does 10,000 miles oil-change intervals, something that may check out scientifically, but that I think is probably a bad idea for someone who does daily short commutes like Elise does. Do I just do the oil changes myself even though she wants to service her car at the dealer and even though it’d look good on a Carfax seeing it was regularly dealer-serviced. It’s entirely up to her, of course, but it’s hard for me — a diehard wrencher — to bite my tongue in the face of a $1,200 bill for some disks and pads.Yikes!