2007 Nissan Altima SE: 20,000-Mile Service and Valve Stem

That included parts and labor for all the work. I didn't feel it necessary to spell out the entire invoice.

that tire looks TERRIBLY bald

20,000 mile service for my 2007 Civic Si Sedan was $0. It included an oil change, and a tire rotation, at the Honda dealer. It was free because that is part of the deal I got.
 
I agree, while I don't find it necessary to point this out at EVERY post, that you guys are getting ripped. At 20k miles all that Altima needs is a tire rotation and an oil change and that should clearly not cost $122.

$180 for a valve stem replacement??? Ouch!
 
What would it cost to install a new set of tires?
 
Amazing what people will pay just so they can skip basic stuff like checking a tires pressure.

I hate all this new technology on cars. Call me a Luddite if you like but all this impossible to fix and diagnose computer shit that's plastered all over new cars is ridiculous. A tire pressure gauge costs one dollar maybe five, twenty if you want to get fancy. $180 for a valve stem. My father works in the auto service industry and he says that it's amazing what people pay now adays for car repairs because the cars have gotten so much more complicated but not any more reliable infact less reliable. And for what? Why? I love my Miata, it's economical, peppy enough, and about as simple as it gets, why do we need all this junk. Sorry for the rant but I just hate to see us all get ripped off for nothing. Oooh the car tells me if my tire is flat. F-ck off.

When I worked at a dealership nearly every car that came in to the service and body shop had both rims on the passenger side totally scratched up. Don't feel too bad. I've nicked the curb a couple times myself. Luckily never bad enough to damage a valve stem.

TPMS is junk.
We need to set concrete prices on people's lives.
A person who dies in a car accident is worth $1,000.
Then the politicians will stop with that nonsense "$180 TPMS, or a person's life" crap.
 
Same thing goes for health care.
People's lives are worth too much, many labeling it as "priceless", "how can you put a price on a person's life?"
Junk like that.
 
That is why we pay through the roof for all this safety crap. Because the politicians have been pushed into the corner with the argument "people's lives are priceless."
 
A strong politician needs to step up and say, "I hereby declare your grandmother $1,582.50."

Benson,
 
Everything on a buggy can be fixed with a hammer and horses are self healing. Another side benefit is that the more you drive it, the more responsive it gets.

Easy to go on and on about how pointless all these safety systems are - until one of them saves someone you love.
 
/endofstory.

mlowery85
 
Your right. But at the same time wrong. You cannot put that red herring on a person. Its just not right.
 
We dont allow the familys of victims decided and executing the punishment on the criminals. if we did every criminal would be killed.
 
And while billt is being a little harsh with the 1,000 dollars. I'm more on his side then the. Life is priceless crowd.
 
Yes it sucks for you and your family, if YOUR tire blew, because YOU did not inflate it.
 
But talk about cost. 180 dollars a wheel x 4 = 720 dollars a car. now lets say it costs the company to be crazy 1/10th that for the part, so 72 dollars a car.
 
You would think thats still cheap.
 
last year they sold what 16 million cars?
so now to save the 20 lives you are costing the economy $1,152,000,000
 
It would be cheaper to pay the 20 blow out victims 1 million dollars. (and thats if the system costs only 72 dollars a car, if its 720 dollars a car, well just take that number times 10)

why does an oil change cost $122? On my old car an oil change and tire rotation would be like $70. Do all import dealerships rip people off like this?

$180 sounds like profiteering to me. Someone may be taking advantage of the consumer's unfamiliarity with new technology.
  
In my last job I tested TPMS systems for a living (among other things). I dealt with representatives from three different companies that make the sensors, and all told me an in-wheel sensor is supposed to cost something like $10 or $15, retail. The most time consuming part of the process is dis-mounting the tire, then remounting and rebalancing - something a tire store will do for 10 or 15 bucks.
  
While the tire is off, the sensor swap takes a minute or two - remove the nut shown above and pull it out. A simple torque wrench is needed to tighten the single nut that holds the sensor on - a standard tool the mechanic will already own.
   
The last step involves the use of a hand-held electronic tool to tell the car's brain the new sensor's ID code. This used to take me about two minutes. This step is optional on systems that can re-learn a sensor ID after 10 or 20 minutes of continuous driving.
  
All in all, the whole thing takes less time and effort than patching a flat tire. Anything more than $50 or $60 for a single sensor sounds superfluous to me. Shop around. Call ahead. Maybe they thought we wanted all four changed?

Personal beef - wheels that stick out beyond the tires. Tires make ideal 'curb finders', wheels do not. The trend to ultra-low profiles has made this worse.

funkymonkey, anytime an oil/lube is north of $40, you should really spell it out what else was done to justify the other charges. $122 seems awfully steep, even with an air filter. Saying the labor is included is laughable because labor is ALWAYS included on an LOF, and for the air filter, maybe oh, 0.1 hrs...Oh, BTW, there is no "lube" anymore...but we still call it LOF, not sure why.

cartester16,
 
Whenever I change oil in any car, I always "lube" door hinges and locks. So the name is still justified, even though most new cars no longer have any chassis grease fittings.
 
As far as $122, we really need to know whether additional services were performed. Sure, I can change oil and filter in 15 minutes but I normally spend much more time than that. A thorough check of brakes, chassis, tires, driveshaft(s), CV boots, steering, etc, etc is worth the extra money. However, one can never tell if the technician really performed all the checks, unless one watches the work being done.

I think the entire TPMS sensor is $25-40 per tire. The $180 was just some BS the stealership was saying. Programming should also be a cinch, probably about 5 minutes of time for all 4 tires

CORRECTION!
I made a mistake and transposed a figure. The estimate for the valve stem replacement was $108, not $180. Still princely, but 40 percent less so.

On the TPMS - Value to Life comments: I think several people are forgetting that there are alot more costs saved by the existance of TPMS. If a blow-out in highway situation is avoided, then potential accidents are avoided. If potential accidents are avoided, then the cost of emergency services (police, possibly paramedics) as well as worsened traffic is reduced.
 
Furthermore, to me, TPMS is a wonderful service that, with today's technology, aids in the true-driver's knowledge the way an oil pressure/temp guage does. Especially TPMS that displays real-time PSI for each tire.
 
It's cost will come down with time, as production techniques get better. While you evaluate the replacement cost as $720 per vehicle, that is a retail, dealership cost for the unit and does not reflect the real-world cost per new-car purchase as it is really a very small amount per car to institute into the production costs.
 
Sometimes, the politicians get one right.
 
Regarding the costs of this service: $122. If you used synthetic oil for the change, I can imagine the charge being $60. Lube? Does the car have zerk fittings for grease to be injected into? No, I thought not.
 
Did they spray lubricate onto the door/trunk/hood hinges and locks? Did they rub a thick silicone grease over the weatherstripping to prevent it from freezing and to maintain it's life? What exactly was lubricated besides the engine (new oil) and why is lube listed as a seperate service than the oil change itself?
 
The only defense to this stuff is that it's a dealership "20,000 mile" service whereby they perform numerous unnecessary inspections. If they actually perform them at all. And then they charge for the time it takes to literally walk under the car and inspect cv joints, control arms, exhaust system, and other things that can be done in a few minutes.
 
But hey, Edmunds is testing these cars to also reflect the real-world stuff people do. Most people do dealership service on their brand new car. Edmunds is providing a service to those people by showing what the dealership charges for their "new car" service (see Honda Fit as an example).
 
Thanks Edmunds!
 
Joe

"Personal beef - wheels that stick out beyond the tires. Tires make ideal 'curb finders', wheels do not. The trend to ultra-low profiles has made this worse."
 
this is common on Asian cars for some reason. They typically have tires that are relatively narrow considering the wheel width. If you look at cars like the Tl you will see a lot of scratched up rims because the wheels are so wide. German and American cars are more likely to use wider tires. You commonly see 215s on Japanese midsize cars while you will often find 225s or 235s on their domestic counterparts and that usually means the tires provide some protection against scratched up rims.

"20,000 mile service for my 2007 Civic Si Sedan was $0. It included an oil change, and a tire rotation, at the Honda dealer. It was free because that is part of the deal I got. "
 
So you paid an unstated amount up front for your service.
 
"$180 for a valve stem replacement??? Ouch!
  
What would it cost to install a new set of tires?"
 
probably $75+ for the pressure sensor stem, plus programming (maybe, some need it some don't) plus a mount and ballance. Still a bit high but that's what things cost now.
 
"and all told me an in-wheel sensor is supposed to cost something like $10 or $15"
 So they (the manufactures) are selling them to the car companies for $3 each? I doubt that.

As previously blogged, the charge was quoted at $108, not $180. Typos (typoes?) happen.
 
As far as the value of life argument, I ask you, what is the value of taking the bus instead of your car? You're infinately more likely to survive an accident in a bus than a POV. You don't have to install a roll cage and 5-point harness in a Volvo to be safe.

A simple mount and balance runs $15/tire around here. I believe it was $25/tire with a TPMS. Not a big difference, really, but you're also paying up-front costs to have the system designed and built into a car.
 
I see legislating something like this as another example of Big Government. What's next? Are we going to see automatic headlights, rain-sensing wipers, automatic steering/braking/driving on every new vehicle? We can't legislate higher costs for everyone just because some idiot didn't check his tire pressure and lost control of his car.
 
By the way... Didn't you guys have a dented/scratched rim early in the Altima's life? Seems to me someone did a pretty nice repair job on it. Or maybe I'm remembering something else.

I have a tire pressure gauge in my glove compartment. Cost about $10, $15. It annoys me that we all must pay for the sins of the lazy and incompetent.

Opfreak: your logic - pay the victims of the inevitable accidents that will ensue from not engineering the safer alternative - sounds shockingly like Ford's position before Pintos began exploding in the 1970s.
 
The numbers are a little different. Back then, I believe the part that would have kept the gas tanks from being pierced cost $11. Ford figured it would be cheaper to pay the insurance claims of accident victims. Nice.
 
That kind of argument works only if you're not one of those cooked in the process.

This isn't about a poor engineering choice or about how much a life is worth.
 
It's about people taking resposibility for their own safety.
 
People seem to think today that they don't have to worry about anything. The government or the manufactor or some computer program will deal with it. If something goes wrong, it's not my fault.
 
Checking tire pressure is the simplest thing. Do it once or twice a month and do a visual check everytime you get in the car.

Yeah, God forbid we encourage consumers to be more attentive to the upkeep of their cars. If we do that, who knows next maybe they'll be more attentive as they drive those cars. Can't have that now can we?

um...you guys are too hard on TPMS. I do checks on my car, but I like the fact that I have a backup just in case there's a slow air leak or something. And let's get it right, it only costs $25 to purchase a sensor from Nissan. The $108 is just the stealership trying to rip off a consumer

I have to agree, the TPMS is valuable. I happen to have an Altima Hybrid and was most appreciative when the light came on after my right front tire lost 6lbs of air slowly. I happen to check my tire pressures fairly regularly, but this thing caught it way before I would have. And if I were a person who didn't check tire pressures often, I likely would've noticed the low tire way later, if at all. Plus, this is the good design in that it resets itself after the pressure is righted.