I think all records/maintenance, whether they were done at a dealer, indy, or yourself are important.

If you can do the work yourself, by all means do it. For example; dealer quoted $3k to do a full brake job on my GTS. I did it myself for $1100 in parts and 4 hours of my time. There's plenty of resources online to help anyone handy do most routine maintenance on their cars; sometimes you need a special tool or two, but otherwise if you follow the basics you'll be fine. I grew up doing oil changes, brake jobs and most other routine maintenance on my cars. As I got older I did get lazier, but if I'll save a considerable amount of money by doing the work myself, I will..

I still believe in taking my car to the dealer once a year for annual maintenance and a "once-over" to catch anything that I would miss. Keep all records to show the work was done.

-Richie

 

Dealer was going to charge me $640 for Oil Change, Oil Filter, and Air Filter.

Took it too a Porsche Indy shop, and got everything done for $220. I will take that $440, and play two rounds of golf at Pebble Beach for "free".

 

My Porsche indy charges me only $145 oil/filter/indicator reset. Shop around....