Lessons learnt from 200K service

At 193,000km, my KIA Spectra was nearing its 200,000km general service. My son said the car had shown signs of difficulty in changing her autogear from 2 to 3 and there were signs of gearbox and engine oil leakage. For a car well run and 10 years old, I felt minor leakage was acceptable so long as it was not like a puddle. Anyway, the car was sent to our regular mechanic (not the authorized car service centre) whom by now I had faith in having previously observe him service the car. Components I brought were:

Semi-synthetic engine oil, 4 litre    RM00
Gearbox oil , 4 litre                        RM00
Engine oil filter                              RM00
DOT 4 brake oil, 2 litre                  RM00 
A regular set of 4 spare plugs       RM00
Total                                    RM210

I usually dispose the gearbox oil like using a dialysis machine per 20,000km, so far so good. But this time I forgot and and it reached the 33,000km mark. My mechanic said to change the gearbox oil per 20,000km or at most, per 30,000km. Because of the minor engine oil leakage, he concluded that the gearbox oil should be dirty with engine grit. After gearbox oil change, everything was back to normal and no engine oil leakage.

It was found the gearbox oil stalk was not properly closed and that caused gearbox oil to splash around the engine bay thus gearbox oil leakage. Closing it properly solved that problem.

It was found that the brake oil was dirty because it was only topped up not frequently flushed. A complete service including bleeding the brake hoses brought back the bite to the brake system.

Although engine coolant was not flushed but regularly topped up, my mechanic advised to continue topping up the coolant as against flushing the coolant as he said that was not good for the car. That saved me some money!

One of the windscreen nozzle had problem squirting water. I was advised to prick it with a needle but in the event it was still blocked, the pump should be faulty. After my son serviced the nozzle with the needle, I was not happy because it still could not function properly. However, upon checking the left nozzle, I somehow pushed the left hose back into the rear nozzle because there was a clicking sound. That brought both nozzles back to generously squirt water as they were designed to. Phew!

Labour charge                       RM80