When you say you’re only getting 11.3V, is this while the engine is running or turned off?

Slip a large sheet of cardboard under your engine bay and check for leaks.

If it’s not leaking and you’re losing oil and coolant you could have a bad head gasket. What appearance does your oil and coolant have and what does your exhaust look and smell like when the engine is fully warmed?

Alternators aren’t easy on Camrys after a certain model year in the 2000s. Used to be you could loosen the two bolts holding it, do the tensioner, slip the drive belt off, and undo the 14mm and 12mm bolts the rest of the way and wiggle the alternator out under a radiator hose.

Unfortunately on your later year Camry the radiator has to come out to get the alternator out. So your labor costs include the time a radiator replacement would take.

Here’s a coolant chart from Motorcraft that should help: https://www.motorcraft.com/content/dam/ford-motorcraft/en_us/motorcraft_global/products/lubricants/quick_reference_charts/antifreeze_coolants_english.pdf

Dexcool isn’t “crap”, I think the problems with it early on was with the materials used in the first cars to use it when it was introduced in the 90s, weren’t properly re-engineered from the IAT days (inorganic acid technology aka green). Dexcool is an OAT coolant (organic acid technology).

The materials that come into contact with coolant have to be properly engineered and have the correct composition to avoid getting eaten away or corroded from a given coolant type.

The yellow could be HOAT (hybrid organic acid technology) or OAT, the yellow color is just a dye, it is more important to know if your engine takes one or the other and choose accordingly.

If your car is FWD, sure, it’s fine. There’s almost an infinite number of tread patterns for a given class and type of tire that grip equally well. Tread pattern on an equivalent tire type has more to do with cosmetics and branding than offering any difference in performance.

Just steer clear of Hyundai and Kia, any other car you might buy made in the last 25 years should come equipped with an engine immobilizer.

Unlike Canada and several EU states, federal law in the US doesn’t mandate immobilizers, so Hyundai and Kia forwent installing them for a 6- year and 11-yeaemr stretch respectively solely because of greed. Meanwhile these very same models for the Canadian and EU markets had them.

You can put your key fob in a Faraday cage when you’re not driving it, if you buy a push button start vehicle. This helps prevent theft via intercept of your fob’s radio transmissions for the type of thieves who stand outside your home at night with an antenna.

I don’t understand how an oil change mess up could have led to any of the things you had done at the dealership.

Did JiffyLube simply not clean up areas where there was spilled oil when they took off the oil filter?

Usually when we hear of stories from quick service oil change places, it’s that they forgot to put oil in, overfilled the oil, forgot to put the drain bolt back in, forgot the gasket on the drain bolt, under or overtorqued the drain bolt, etc.

Has it recently become cold where you are? It’s normal for strut mounts and bushings to creak in the cold.

Don’t really have any advice to give on these aftermarket modifications. But if you end up not modding the Camry and want to get something more modern instead, I’ll buy it.

I imagine he’s charging 100% markup on cost - so ~2 gallons of coolant at $17 × 2 and 4x plugs at $40 x 2. Parts/supplies = $74. It looks like he’s charging you 1 hour labor @ 130 per hour each on plugs and coolant. $260.

I think it would be appropriate to charge 0.5 hours labor on the plugs.

If someone’s breath is fogging up and forming a layer of frost on the interior of the windows and they can’t see, best to let it warm a little. Idling may not be best for the engine but dying in a wreck because you can’t see out your windshield is worse.

Almost all lead-acid batteries in the US are made by Johnson Controls, Exide, or Delphi. There’s not much use really comparing particular brands since most battery brands are resellers or private labels, and even within a brand they may be buying from a mix of those three and reselling them under their own label.

Look for the best combination of price, warranty, make sure you get the right group type and sufficient CCA.

Take a rag and hold it over your tailpipe for 5 or 10 seconds at a time. See if you can hear the exhaust hissing out of anywhere upstream of the catalytic converter. Flexpipe, midpipe, exhaust manifold. Even better if you have someone else to hold the rag while you listen.

Another method would be to make some soapy water, the consistency of the stuff you blow bubbles with the wand. Liquid dish detergent and water in a spray bottle. You can spray the exhaust before it fully heats and see if the soap/ water mix bubbles anywhere. This works if you can get underneath the car to visually inspect while doing it.

Just out of curiosity, who is putting these in for you? Do you have a mechanic who is OK with you bringing your own parts? Reason I ask, is that if you don’t know how many cylinders your car has, I’m sure you’re not doing this yourself. Your brake pads also include no mounting hardware… are you sure your hardware is good condition to be re-used?

Judging from your selection of an uncoated rotor, I’m guessing you’re living somewhere where rust, snow, and road salt are not an issue.

Other than that, you have the right parts.

Motorcraft is the OEM for your vehicle (Ford). I would imagine the part you buy from them is the same as the one they put in when they built your car at the factory.

A full bottle of octane booster is probably going to boost the octane level by 0.1 per a bottle, would probably cost a couple hundred dollars, just frequently top up with 98.

0w20 if you’re somewhere it snows, 5w20 if you’re somewhere it doesn’t.

Brand doesn’t matter so much. I use Mobil 1 High Mileage Full Synthetic Extended Performance and change it myself every 5000 miles on my 254k mile vehicle. Cost a few bucks extra but I don’t think it does much extra.

Your power steering fluid is just ATF. Maybe it’s not dyed red from the factory fill but you can just change it out with something like Valvoline MaxLife synthetic ATF. Look at the reservoir cap on the PSF reservoir, should say something about Dexron. Anything you can buy for it labeled as PSF in that case is just undyed Dexron ATF.

An easier way to pump out the fluid is just to clean out a pump dispenser from an old liquid soap bottle and pump everything from the reservoir it into an empty container. Turkey basters tend to drop fluid as you lift them out and the pumps tend to leak residual fluid too that didn’t get pumped when you lift them from the reservoir and drain bottle.

Do this several times over a few weeks with a couple quarts of Dexron ATF like Valvoline Maxlife and eventually you’ll have 99% new fluid for $10 or $12.

What code are you getting?

4 hours labor for 4 quick struts. They might get done quicker but that’s the book rate. Don’t expect them to penalize themselves for working faster.