Factory scheduled maintenance in San Mateo

What "factory maintenance" means

Every car comes with a maintenance schedule from the people who engineered it. It lists what to replace, what to inspect and when, usually by mileage and time, whichever comes first. Following it is the single most reliable way to keep a car dependable past 100,000 miles.

We follow that schedule, not a generic shop menu. That matters because the generic menus tend to add services the manufacturer never asked for, and skip the ones that are specific to your engine or transmission.

What a typical service includes

The exact list depends on your car and mileage, but these are the items we see most:

• Oil and filter with the grade and specification your engine calls for
• Tire rotation and a tread and pressure check
• Brake inspection, measuring pad and rotor thickness, not just glancing at them
• Fluids at their intervals: brake fluid, coolant, transmission, differential and transfer case
• Filters: engine air and cabin air
• Spark plugs and, on some engines, a timing belt and water pump
• Inspection of belts, hoses, suspension, steering, exhaust and lights

You see what we see

While the car is on the lift, we look at more than the checklist. If something is wearing, leaking or loose, we take a photo and send it to you by text with a plain explanation. Then we tell you which items need attention now, which can wait until next time, and which don't need doing at all.

Sometimes the honest answer is that a fluid on the list still looks new and doesn't need replacing yet. We'll tell you that too.

Cars we maintain

Most Japanese, American and European cars, plus hybrids. Hondas and Acuras are home turf from our time at Honda; the Maintenance Minder codes are second nature. See the cars we work on.