Service recommendations

[RAllenZ]

60k service, my dealer recommended a $875.00 "spark plug r/r," saying the majority of that cost was labor due to the difficult placement of the engine. Is "Spark Plug r/r" necessary, now or ever? 

[Yugguy1970]

Spark plugs do wear out and need changing but that seems a phenominal cost.

[Catlover]

Has the dealer said what they did to overcome “difficult placement of engine”.

[AisinW]

Highlander and most V6 FWD are indeed not easy to work on. However, the actual specs for sparkplugs replacement is 120k miles from the original USA highlander. There is no reason to make exact same engines and sparplugs brands from Toyota-Denso to have only 1/2 life from Toyota USA.  It is all about the habit and comfort of europe costumers who like to change sparkplugs way too early.  Iridium plugs like in Auris, Corolla, Yaris, Prius hybrid are also supposed to be 120k miles, but europe division wants more profit and take advantage of european mainset. They make it 60k miles too. I don't follow it, and so far never have problems removing spark plugs at 120k miles in prius or auris. The same thing with Highlander, Rav4, camry, etc.  Just check again the schedule in USA too where most Toyota are sold in 10x more quantity than europe.  Especially if we have exact same engines, transmission, and brake fluid . Brake fluid in hybrid is easily last 100k miles without any need to flush unless we do some work in  brake line at the same time.  Water content is never an issue in toyota even no flush in 5 years. The seals is really good.

[FROSTYBALLS]

The OP is in the US, so the above post is largely irrelevant.

[Devon Aygo]

On 10/19/2021 at 2:07 PM, AisinW said:

Highlander and most V6 FWD are indeed not easy to work on. However, the actual specs for sparkplugs replacement is 120k miles from the original USA highlander. There is no reason to make exact same engines and sparplugs brands from Toyota-Denso to have only 1/2 life from Toyota USA.  It is all about the habit and comfort of europe costumers who like to change sparkplugs way too early.  Iridium plugs like in Auris, Corolla, Yaris, Prius hybrid are also supposed to be 120k miles, but europe division wants more profit and take advantage of european mainset. They make it 60k miles too. I don't follow it, and so far never have problems removing spark plugs at 120k miles in prius or auris. The same thing with Highlander, Rav4, camry, etc.  Just check again the schedule in USA too where most Toyota are sold in 10x more quantity than europe.  Especially if we have exact same engines, transmission, and brake fluid . Brake fluid in hybrid is easily last 100k miles without any need to flush unless we do some work in  brake line at the same time.  Water content is never an issue in toyota even no flush in 5 years. The seals is really good.

Perhaps some confusion over units of distance here:

Toyota UK work in miles and state spark plugs should be changed at 60,000 miles on a 10,000 miles 12 month schedule

Toyota EU work on Kilometres and stare spark plugs should be changed at 90,000 kilometres on a 15,000 kilometres 12 month schedule

[AisinW]

8 hours ago, Devon Aygo said:

Perhaps some confusion over units of distance here:

Toyota UK work in miles and state spark plugs should be changed at 60,000 miles on a 10,000 miles 12 month schedule

Toyota EU work on Kilometres and stare spark plugs should be changed at 90,000 kilometres on a 15,000 kilometres 12 month schedule

Exactly, that's my main question. Why do european has to change 2x more often on sparkplugs? There is no difference in engine and sparkplugs series (Iridium denso). The same thing with brake fluids, Toyota USA never really have a schedule for it, flush only when it is necessary, low additive through copper striptest or high water contents >3%, but in practice only when fluid lines has some repairs (master cylinder, calipers,etc.).  Some dealership recommend every 3 years but won't void warranty if we don't do it. Especially in hybrid, even after 200k miles/10years the brake fluid is still in 90% of the additive and <1% water.