Hey guys. I'm not the most mechanically inclined person in the world. Heck, you can even say that I'm nothing but a computer geek...

Anyways, I went to get my usual oil change (which I do at the dealer because of the tires for life thinking that the cost was worth it.) It was the fourth and thus free oil change. That morning, my cell phone was cut off so I was basically out of money. When I got there, the guy told me that I had to get the 15k mile checkup/tune and that it would be over $200. I told him I didn't have the money at the moment. He told me that I couldn't, my tires for life would expire. Sooooo, I guess there goes THAT idea.

Back to my point:
I'm a dummy when it comes to taking care of cars... I've search online but I just get random information that's not very well organized. Can anyone here that knows our cars well enough give me a nice rundown of what things have to be done at what mileage? PLEASE! Pretty pretty please!
Many of us don't know jack and many of us will act like we do and just fork over an arm and a leg to have it done by someone else. I can figure out how to DO the stuff since your HOW-TO thread is really well done, but I just don't know when to do what.

Also, I've read around this forum people saying that they wished they had changed the stock tires way before doing any other mods. Are the stock LS tires THAT bad? If so, then good riddance to loosing my tires for life? lol
Thanks in advance, guys!!!


TRANSLATION:

 

WTF did you just try saying?

 

he wants to take care of his car because the were gouging him at the dealer

 

i've never heard of a tune for an ls at 15k. just do the oil changes yourself. its a ten minute job

 

That's what I plan on doing, I just need some guidance as to when to do what.

They say every 3k miles for an oil change. Is this really needed? Can it go farther?
When should I check/change other fluids? When should I rotate my tires? When should I change my breaks? (Other than when they start making noises.)
Etc.

 

look in the back of your owners manual it should have it broken down

 

Ivan, I am gonna guess that you are a foreigner or from foreign descent (not discriminatory, but the name ivan and your english is broken) It sounds like the dealer is trying to gouge and take advantage of you.

Find out what this supposed 15k tune up is and then bring it to a manager and/or us. Because even in your manual, i dont think there is anything planned or scheduled other than maybe an air filter change.

by the way, i cant see why any scheduled maintenance tune up to keep your tires for life warranty or anything else should cost anything, let alone $200

 

Dealers love to have people bring in their car in for these "checkups"; that way they get the car up on the lift, and they can say your brakes need servicing, or whatever, and 99% of the people out there will just go ahead and say OK. I'll bet the $200 quoted turns out to be a lot more than that when they "find" these brake problems or whatever.

15,000 miles on a brand-new car is nothing. Change the oil yourself, and throw a new air filter on there too. None of your other fluids are due for replacement for a long time yet. Rotating the tires is a good idea; some places like Just Tires will do it for free if you've bought from them in the past.

 

...No, English isn't my primary language, but it's practically become my primary language. My English isn't what's broken up; it's my thought patterns. It's a little insulting actually... The problem with my posts thus far is that I haven't exactly known what I was trying to ask before I actually asked it. I have a problem which causes my mind to clutter up things together. This makes it very hard to focus my ideas into words at times. I'll edit the post appropriately.


/Rant
On a side note, I've been warned not to visit this site by some because of the way you guys express yourselves to others at times... No offense, but of the many car forums that I've been to, this is the very first one that introduced itself with a "What? You can't speak properly." This DOES turn off people quite quickly. Especially considering that:
a) Most people in this forum don't use capitalization nor do they use punctuation.
b) There are many folk who have speech impediments that are completely unrelated to their linguistic backgrounds.
c) I just like lists in three's. lol

In any case, not the best experience.




EDIT: Thanks, css9450. That is the first real answer I've gotten. The original idea behind this thread was to give people like me a central place where they could have found the information in a neat format.

 

exactly. last time i had my car in the shop, the guy said that my air filter was dirty and needed to be changed. yea, he never checked it because i didn't have the stock filter in, and when i checked myself afterwards he never even looked. they wanted like 250 to change the air filter and the fuel filter i changed the fuel filter myself for 35 dollars.

to the op, as far as maintenance and what to do to your car, the normal things are rotate tires, check your oil, check your fluids, check tire pressure. Just start looking at your car and learning what it looks like. we all start somewhere. just keep looking, it will start to look familiar, and piece by piece you'll learn what you're looking at and what it does. and also, you will know when something doesn't look how it's supposed to. and if you have any questins, post them up. people can be dicks here sometimes, especially to new guys that don't really know what they're doing. people forget that they didn't always know everything, so if you need help you can always pm me with questions. If i can't help, i can point you in the direction of someone that can.

you have to just ignor people bro. this is a large forum, with thousands and thousands of people coming here daily. some of which are lonely bastards that have never been laid, have no friends, have no life, and so they're tough online. don't let it get to you though. not everyone is like that. there's plenty of helpful people here.

 

Its recommended to rotate tires every 5000 miles, I do every 9,000.
Oil used to be every 3000 miles, or every 6 months. Check the Driver information center for oil life remaining. I change mine every 3000 miles, and oil life never goes below 40%.
Radiator gets flushed every 5 years, or 50000 miles, dealer can check to see if antifreeze is still effective if you don't want to change it that often. If its not effective and you live where it gets cold, it will freeze and burst the radiator.
Battery gets replaced about every 4 years, unless its warranted longer like the Sears, Diehard Gold.
Tires get replaced when they wear out. If you drive on the highway in heavy rain and feel the car move around and float on the water, you need new tires. When you turn the wheel at speed the car doesn't react, continues stright.
Change air filter about every 10000-12000 miles. If its dirty, can decrease fuel milage.
Check tire pressure about 1 every 2 months, especially when there is a big swing in the temperature outside. Reccomended tire pressure is on the drivers side door.
Too high and you could have a blowout, too low and they will wear very quickly and are more susceptable to cuts from runing over stuff in the road.

These are my preferances as I prefer to pay a little more now than have to deal with expensive problems later. This does not include the serpinteen belt, compressor, wiper blades or other stuff I am not thinking of at this moment.

You could read your owners manual, it should have all of this information specific to your car.

 

What css and D4 said.

And no, the LS tires for life doesn't sound that enticing to me.

Welcome to the site, ivan! Spend some time on here and in no time you'll know quite a bit about your car.