We had the car booked for a regular service check today at Toyota Melbourne so we rode the car to work today instead of taking the train as we normally do. Today being a rainy day (finally), I initially thought that we had chosen a good day not to have to walk to the station.
It usually takes about 30-40 minutes to get to the city from our place by car but not today. There were reports of a crash near West Gate Bridge and “a nightmarish traffic condition”. There was a long line of slow moving cars at the Westgate Freeway near Altona and we basically crawled along until we got to the bridge, after which the pace picked up a bit (but not by much). We left the house at 8.20 and arrived at work at around 9.40. If we had taken the 8.26 train, we would have gotten in at work before 9.30. D’oh, perhaps this is not a good day to bring the car after all.
When hubby told me that the expected bill for the service is about $288, I had a mini heart attack. It was actually supposed to be $320 but we mentioned the 10% discount voucher from their website so we got a slightly cheaper rate. Last time we had the car serviced at Toyota Werribee, the bill came to less than $200. We suspected that the service centre here at the CBD might be a bit expensive but this is highway robbery! If only the service centre in Werribee still services cars during Saturdays, we wouldn’t have had the car serviced in the CBD. Toyota Werribee used to do car servicing on Saturdays but our friend M. has told us that they now only accept cars for servicing on the morning of the first Saturday of the month. We thought that since we work in the city anyway, we thought it would be more convenient to take it to Toyota Melbourne in the morning and pick it up in the afternoon. D’oh number 2.
On the bright side, at least it’s finally raining and it means more water in our catchments.
Palabok 
@Ringjo: Yeah, you may have something there indeed – the last service check was done 6 months ago. Although sabi nung nag-check dati, Oct daw namin ibalik so Oct nga namin pnaservice ulit. Sabi kse nya, d naman daw namin gnagamit madalas yung kotse.
@Leah: Whoa, wala palang binatbat yung final bill namin na $301 sa pa-service nyo. Yikes, a grand! Sakit sa bulsa.
Hi Raquel!
We also had our Camry fixed this week. Medyo napabayaan kaya the car needed lots of repairing. Our bill cost us a grand! :((
Hmm… You may be on to something there. 🙂
do you follow a guide of sometype like when it reaches the 5,000km or atleast 3 months, you have to have your car checked at the kasa? Kung hindi kasi, may chance na talagang mag mamahal yung pa-service niyo sa car niyo. Take my friend for instance, she has a Mazda 3 which is a year older than mine. But, just last month we both had our cars serviced for the 20,000 km mark (apparently, she doesn’t use her car that much). The service to my car cost around P7K. Hers reached to atleast P14K.
See where I’m getting at? It’s really hard to explain. But I think you get the idea. :d