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The mkiv Supra Owners Club

Is there any point to a Supra service history


rider
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Whenever Supra ads come up in the classifieds no one, I mean no one, ever seems to mention documented service history beyond the occasional mention of loads of receipts for parts. I DIY all my old cars, except for one, the Supra which heads off to an independent garage once a year for its MOT and service with book stamping and wondering why go to the expense?

 

Are there any others who still bother with garage servicing? The only thing holding me back from stopping is I have a fully stamped up service book from 1998 with the car.

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For a purist with a stock oem car then having Toyota dealer/independent Toyota specialists stamps would be a positive when you come to sale.

 

Any car will benefit from.having a well kept informative service history as it shows its been looked after whether that's garage stamps or your own did servicing as long as it's documented and evidence to prove it then your golden.

 

As above has said with these cars you can normally tell if it's been looked after or not.

 

Me personally I will have srd service and do any major work that I'm not going to do myself. And keep recipes and pictures in a folder as when I bought the car it had no service history what so ever. :( just a lot of history through word of mouth and from the owner so you have to take there word for it on what has happened to the car.

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my book is stamped up to a few years ago , then as im not using the car , anything that i can do i do myself , like all the fluids , things like that .

if i decide to sell , i can tell the new owner to look on here at my posts , that will confirm any issues ive had over the years , may i add not many .

so this place is my service history

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Problem being with the jspecs is very few come through with any history. I would not even believe the mileage quoted as these are changed in Japan. I was quite lucky with my own import as it had a bit of jap history with it. I tend to do most of the work and 6 monthly servicing myself (loads of receipts in the box) as there is no one down my way who knows these cars. Now if I had a UK with a full service history or Jspec for that matter then it would have been sent to Mr T or a reputable independent.

 

I would think most of us look after our pride and Joy now though

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If I had a fully stamped book I would probably carry on with it aswell to be fair

 

That's the conundrum.

 

It doesn't make much sense when I have a full rise ramp, don't intend selling the car ever and it seems few Supras carry any kind of comprehensive history which doesn't phase people. The older a car gets, the less service history is relevant or adds value. its seems strange , I feel almost locked in to keeping it up for the sake of keeping it up when I could save probably £300 a time doing it myself.

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I feel almost locked in to keeping it up for the sake of keeping it up

 

Thats the problem, and applies to most cars

 

Its a case of whether it will matter come sale time (if it ever happens), which on a car like the supra im not sure it would

 

Maybe an absolute mint collectors type car would benefit from it

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I'm working on an excel template currently to document my DIY car servicing. Mainly it will be a simple table to print out to fill in mileage and work done. However I'll probably end up sharing it here as I want to add hyperlinks to the FAQ section for certain jobs as well as lists of other "non service" preventative maintenance jobs. Also for part numbers etc.

 

Think of it as a "dummies" guide for working on your Supra.

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To be honest, book of stamps only matters to the delusional, and it annoys me when people bump up the price because of stamps :/

 

Whether it be in stamp form or a piece of paper / receipts I think it should matter, regardless of if it is a garage or you doing the servicing etc otherwise what proof is there that it's been looked after or regularly maintained ? All you would have is the word of the previous owner then what do you say when you want to sell it ?

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Very easy to fake stamps. I wouldnt trust old car service history unless it is backed up fully with invoices. Likewise most main dealers would be clueless with these cars nowadays Im guessing so a good specialist service history would mean far more to me

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Lack of Oil and coolant changes gives you problems in the long run, autobox fluids too. For oil and coolant you can look at a few things to give you an idea how frequently/infrequently this has been done and/or quality of fluids used. I'd be happy to trust my eyes/experience above all but would always like to see some history and if the eyes stuff matches what you'd expect from the history it provides some nice reassurance.

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Very easy to fake stamps. I wouldnt trust old car service history unless it is backed up fully with invoices. Likewise most main dealers would be clueless with these cars nowadays Im guessing so a good specialist service history would mean far more to me

 

Agree with invoices to back up stamps but then invoices can also be faked unless you ring up the garage to verify and hope it's still there ! I do however disagree with the specialist servicing though in respect to routine servicing. There's nothing special about how to change the spark plugs, oil, coolant and filters on a supra so as long as quality parts are used and it is a competent mechanic it shouldn't matter where it is done.

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Whether it be in stamp form or a piece of paper / receipts I think it should matter, regardless of if it is a garage or you doing the servicing etc otherwise what proof is there that it's been looked after or regularly maintained ? All you would have is the word of the previous owner then what do you say when you want to sell it ?

 

Receipts are completely different to garage stamps.

 

At the end of the day, regardless of how often oil is changed etc, it means next to nothing in reality.

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Yes I think it matters. I bought mine as service history for last 18 years has been fully documented by previous owner (Toyota main dealer servicing up to 66k miles) and myself and he bought car off Toyota too when it was 4 years old.

 

Main dealer service history is great to have full stop but I kind of agree with some comments that specialist garages like SRD are more welcome as the cars age. I doubt you have the same level of knowledge about these cars at the Toyota dealerships and service centres as you did 20, 10 or even 5 years ago so trusting a competent expert is ever more important.

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I've printed out some forum threads for 'history' of mine as it 'proves' it's low use, frequent oil changes and matches the MOT history etc. This tracks it back to import so about as good as you can get with J-specs. My other was a JM Import i picked up a few owners later still with it's original bimta certificate and purchase invoice, and a fair bit of subsequent service history which was reassuring but to be honest the car was so cheap and clean that it mattered little when I viewed it, price, visuals and how it drove were more than enough on that occasion. In general we are spoilt by how tough they are!

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Receipts are completely different to garage stamps.

 

At the end of the day, regardless of how often oil is changed etc, it means next to nothing in reality.

 

Agree with you Al.

 

A lot of these cars (particularly forum owned ones) are owner maintained anyway.

 

The only way I can prove I've changed the oil on mine is the fact I've still got a receipt for the oil and filter I got at the time of doing it.

 

Does that make any difference at all to the majority of buyers? Doubtful.

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I don't think I would want to take mine to a toyota dealer when the tech will know a Yaris inside out but wouldn't know a supra at all

 

I think if the car is total stock a service history can help but when it gets beyond a point of modification a service history is history ;)

 

I work at a performance tuner and have all receipts from me servicing it ect, besides I never got a service book with my import lol

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I always keep a record on my supras and any other car i've owned, stamped up service books along with every receipt for

service parts and a separate folder for custom parts etc

 

Each to their own but for me i wouldn't buy a car without a service record, the books are easily falsified but 2 mins on the phone

to a dealer and you get exactly whats been done and when, it can also give you more info than you bargained for as i found out

when i enquired about a Z4 35iS not so long ago

 

The car had been repaired by BMW and was all on record on their data base, it had had a fairly major front end, even the guy

telling me about it was surprised at the extent of the parts list and that it wasn't written off !!!

Edited by Dnk (see edit history)
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I don't think I would want to take mine to a toyota dealer when the tech will know a Yaris inside out but wouldn't know a supra at all

 

I think if the car is total stock a service history can help but when it gets beyond a point of modification a service history is history ;)

 

I work at a performance tuner and have all receipts from me servicing it ect, besides I never got a service book with my import lol

 

With my first UK mkiv that i bought from Toyota the local dealer had the top technician fully trained up on the mkiv and definitely new

what he was doing on them.

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my local dealer the techys havnt even heard of a supra lol . but the service manager is old school and ive known him for years from when he was on the tools, he looked after my mk111, so if i need any advice i go to him the problem i have here is he wont do any work on the car anymore , and finding someone else is hard

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