maintenance question
 

Hi,

I spent a bit of time searching, but it seems I'm a horrible searcher...

I have a 2007 Toyota Camry, and for the first ~2 1/2 years we've used it very minimally (8k miles). Now that we've moved to a new area, we've been using the car much more, about ~1k miles/mo.

We've just hit the 10k miles, and I was just wondering - what maintenance do I need to have performed on the car?

Do I treat it like a car with 10,000 miles? or a car that's 3 years old?
We've done the oil change thing, but otherwise, I wasn't sure whether we shoudl follow the 10k miles, or 3yrs for maintenance.

Thank you.

Suggest you look over all the items on the maintenance lists for the miles driven and months of car ownership and separate out those that can deteriorate with age. This would be coolant, brake fluid, to an extent trans fluid, belts, hoses, anything with "rubber."

Coolant would be one issue to stick with months as the corrosion inhibitors become exhausted with age.

Brake fluid attracts moisture from the air.

The trans, diff and PS fluid ages once exposed to air, although high heat is the number killer of these fluids.

Belts will break down over time, coolant hose may or may not depending on what material was used and with a good material hoses can last the life of the car. Don't know what Toyota has been using.

The same for tires, if the car was outdoors they are exposed to UV light.

Thus for those items such as coolant, change it at the miles interval. For the other items such as fluids, move ahead in the manual 3 years and determine what Toyota states.

I do suggest if keeping the car to have the trans fluid changed at least before 60K, the manual states 40K if pulling a trailer (the fluid gets hotter). If you do lots of stop and go driving, the fluid also gets hot. 40K is better then 60K, very cheap insurance against transmission failure.

When inspecting the car, just remember the parts are 3 years old, then give a little more credence to items made of "rubber", etc.

Thank you - Guess I'm going to have to sit down and take good notes, then find a good trust worthy mechanic around the area since I presume a dealer will just make me change everything.

thank you.