Survey: maintenance costs vs Ford maintenance plan costs

[Brown Dog]

When I bought my 09 F350 I also bought the 6yr/100K premium maintenance plan and 7yr/100K ESP. My reasoning was that these big diesel trucks are expensive to buy, expensive to service, and expensive to fix if things go wrong - and from all I'd read about the 6.0's and early 6.4's it seemed possible that something very expensive might go wrong.

For me the premium maintenace plan was worth it for two reasons:
1. I'm not set up to easily do the regular maintenane work myself.
2. I wanted to be sure that ALL service on my truck was documented and met requirements to protect my warranty so that if anything went wrong it was going to be hard for Ford to argue that it was not their problem but resulted from some failure or omission on my part.

Across various forums I've seen folks list costs for regular maintenance and the more I read the better I feel about the $2230 I spent on a premium maintenance plan with 5K service interval. But, what I haven't seen is any systematic information on the costs of required maintenance to help owners make decisions about whether the maintenance plans like mine are worth the up front costs and save money over the long run or whether they are not.

Soo...I'm asking all you 6.4 owners to post your costs of required maintenance. Probably should restrict it to costs of dealer-performed maintenance services to make sure the analysis of service costs vs maintenance plan costs is apples to apples.

If you'll post your costs I'll collect and analyze them and summarize them to give folks solid information to use when comparing the costs of a maintenance plan compared to paying for the services piece by piece over the life of the vehicle. If you post the location where your service is performed I may be able to give state/province or at least regional breakdowns of costs.

Please post your dealer-performed maintenance cost for any of the following:

1. Engine oil and oil filter replacement
2. Change engine-mounted fuel filter and chassis-mounted fuel filter.
3. Tire inspection and rotation
4. Inspect and lubricate steering linkage, ball joints, suspension, half shafts, drive shaft and u-joints.
5. Inspect and lubricate 4x4 front axle and u-joints
6. Lubricate 4x4 front hub needle berrings.
7. Multi-point inspection including: check and fill fluid levels of transmission, brakes, power steering, coolant, window washer.
8. Replace wheel bearing grease and grease seals on 4x2 wheel bearings.
9. Change 4x4 transfer case fluid.
10. Flush & refill engine coolant.
11. Change transmission fluid (and filter if equipped.)
12. Change air filter
13. Location: city/state

If the moderators will make this a sticky we can routinely collect data and I can regularly update the summarized information.

[Old_Truck]

I also have the premium maintenance plan, I am on a 5000 mile plan. I just pull up at the dealer and all the maintenance is free.

[timid1]

The dealer is too expensive. Period. They wanted $110 to do an oil change for my 2008 F250 PSD. I can do the EXACT same thing for half the cost. Oh, and I put a Fumoto drain valve on my oil pan so the only tool I need is a 36mm socket wrench.

I keep my truck as far away from the dealership as possible because if it's something I can do *myself* (e.g., oil change, fuel filter change), I'd pay DOUBLE what it cost to do it myself.