Recently a friend had their 2010 Nisan Altima serviced at a shop. The work they had performed was a partial general tuneup and oil change. This is really something that most people can do if they have the place and can do the work themselves. In this How To we will go over what they experienced and paid for the work and what it might take for you to do the work yourself.
The work they had completed included the following parts being replaced.
$52 for Oil and Oil Filter
$16 Air Filter
$47 for 4 OEM Spark Plugs
$65 Some Type Of Fuel System Cleaning
The total for the work performed was over $600 and the parts and labor broke down as follows: $344 for Parts and $227 for Labor and then there was additional Sales Tax which brought the price up over $600.
If we look at the cost of the parts even if we use premium parts that are not on sale or discount then you would expect to pay the following:
$29 for Valvoline High Mileage Oil and a Wix Extreme Duty Filter
$19 for X 4 Champion Iridium OE Type Spark Plugs
$7 for a Wix Air Filter
$7 for Sea Foam Fuel Additive
$62 The Total in Parts you could buy yourself (not on sale or discount)
The price of the parts alone and these parts including the Filters, Oil and Plugs were all upgraded to better quality parts comes in $282 less than what the shop charged for lesser quality parts.
In addition to that this work is relatively simple and requires very few tools. You will need a Socket Set to remove the Spark Plugs and a Oil Pan to catch the Used Oil. You will probably need a screw driver to change the Air Filter and the Sea Foam can be added to your gas tank as recommended to help clean your fuel injectors and other parts.
I don’t believe for a minute that the shop actually performed a full fuel system service because the price they charged for changing a single spark plug was $25 per plug and the price for the Fuel Service was about $100 and doing a full fuel and decarbonization of the fuel system is much more labor intensive than changing a spark plug. They probably sprayed some Carburetor Cleaner down the Throttle Body and it took 2 minutes while they were changing the Air Filter.
How Much Will You Save By Doing The Work Yourself?
With this real world example you can see that just the price that you save by buying the parts yourself allows you to buy higher quality oil, filters and plugs. The savings just on parts is almost half the cost of having a shop do the work and that is not reasonable when you consider they used more generic parts.
When you add on the price of labor to parts the total savings you have is somewhere around 90% from what a shop would charge you. Considering that the work was not performed at a dealership who are notorious for charging high rates for labor then this is really a savings that the average person can see.
How Hard Is It To Perform This Work?
The fact is there are times when work that needs to be performed on your vehicle is outside of the normal ability of the average car owner. When it comes to work on the internal parts of the engine or transmission you are normally better off having an expert do the work but for general maintenance the average person can perform the work with basic tools if they have the space to work. Apartment buildings and garages are not a place to perform work but even then there are possibilities to do some of the work yourself.
In reality the Oil Change was probably close to what you might pay from an average oil change shop and there are national chains that do the work relatively cheaply for people that can’t do this work themselves. However doing the work yourself is very easy. All you need to do is drain the oil and replace the filter and then add new oil and make sure everything is tight and not leaking. Total time to change the oil might be 30 minutes for an average car or truck.
Changing spark plugs is also a pretty easy thing to do. You will need a special spark plug socket that is included in most 3/8″ Socket Sets which you can pick up for about $30 for a full set of sockets and wrenches. You pull the spark plug coil and then remove the old spark plug. Inspect the plug and then replace it and reattach the spark plug wires or coil. The time to do this might be another 30 to 45 minutes.
Changing your Air Filter is extremely easy. Normally you find a small box in the engine compartment that stores the filter and remove the lid by removing retaining catches or some screws. Remove the old filter and put in the new filter. The time to do this work will be about 15 minutes and may require a screw driver.
Once you are done you can take your used oil to any gas station that performs oil changes and they will accept it free. If they try to charge you then call another shop especially a national chain and they will allow you to drop it off for free as is normally required by law of any store that performs the work and also sells oil.
To clean your fuel system you can add a fuel injector additive to your gasoline when you fill up your tank. Normally you use the entire contents of the bottle with a full tank of gasoline but read the directions you might use less. If you do this once a year or as recommended then your fuel system will perform better and stay clean but realize that gasoline actually has cleaners in it to help keep your fuel system clean. Deeper cleaning of things like your Manifold Air Sensors, PCV Valve, VTech Valve and oil and fuel system actually take a good amount of time and it is extremely doubtful they were performed on this vehicle in the time that was allotted for labor. These things can be done for the price of a can of injector cleaner if the owner takes the time to learn how to do the work.
Final Note
These basic tasks are well within the average vehicle owner and the main thing is once your vehicle is past its warranty period these are things that you should do yourself.
If you can’t do the work yourself because you are physically unable or don’t have a place to do it then you should find a mechanic that will charge you much less than a high dollar shop. Look for discounts on oil changes from reputable companies. I have even seen manufacturer dealers that provide Oil Changes for older cars at a very small cost but then expect to get on their mailing list for all types of other work. Just don’t have that work done if you don’t need it.