Expensive Day

Got up a little earlier than normal this morning. Wanted to make sure I got over to the Toyota dealer on time for my service appointment on the 4Runner. I waited in the lobby of the dealership for about an hour while they did the lube/oil/filter service and the 27 point checkup. Then my service adviser Julie came and told me that I needed some additional work done. She said my drive belts were cracking, I needed new spark plugs and I also needed to have the throttle body serviced. Had to look that one up on the Internet to see exactly what it was. Has to do with emissions and engine power. If it's not clean, it can bog down the power of the engine and cause it to stall out. Would not want that to happen on the freeway. I got both vehicles serviced (LOF) 6 months ago and I know it's been over a year since Ben had gotten major work done on either one, so I anticipated that it would need more than just the LOF service. Julie told me it would take another 2 or 3 hours, so she got me a ride home on their courtesy shuttle. The work cost a small fortune, but I would not want the 4Runner to crap out on me when I was out driving it on the freeway or something and about 90% of the costs were for the labor, but it is a lot cheaper than purchasing a new vehicle. Ben always trusted the dealership more to work on the vehicles than he did the local mechanics. He delivered parts to most of the locals and he told me he didn't think they knew anything about cars. He always said that the dealership mechanics were trained specifically for Toyotas, so I still go by the way he did things because I trusted him. I did notice when I drove the 4Runner back home that it seemed to have a lot more power than it did before. I had not realized the engine was getting so sluggish, but since they did this throttle body service, I could feel the difference.

The view inside of the Toyota dealer