new car warranty and servicing

zildjian09

i bought a new citroen c1 last year, and managed to wangle my first year's service free, so no problems there.

when it comes to my next service, do i have to go back to the garage i bought the car from to be serviced, in order to keep my warranty? people keep telling me different things about this. i have been told that if you go to a garage which is citroen approved, but not the actual garage you bought it from, then your warranty will still be in tact? if this is true, how can i find an approved garage in my local area?

any help would be appreciated.

thanks
xxx

Mark_Hewitt

zildjian09 wrote: »

i bought a new citroen c1 last year, and managed to wangle my first year's service free, so no problems there.

when it comes to my next service, do i have to go back to the garage i bought the car from to be serviced, in order to keep my warranty? people keep telling me different things about this. i have been told that if you go to a garage which is citroen approved, but not the actual garage you bought it from, then your warranty will still be in tact? if this is true, how can i find an approved garage in my local area?

any help would be appreciated.

thanks
xxx

Yep, the law was changed some years ago and the manufacturer can no longer force you to go to a main-dealer to get your car serviced.

You can go to any garage which will carry out the servicing according to the manufacturers schedule.

Even then you can still take it to any Citroen garage if you want to go down that route.

I recently got my new Fiesta serviced at the Ford dealer 5 minutes walk from my house, instead of the garage where I bought it 30 minutes drive away. Once the car is sold the garage where you bought it from has nothing more to do with you, it's all handed by Fords warranty company.

BenL

In 3 years I had my Astra serviced at 3 different garages. I did use Vauxhall main dealers though and have generally been happy.

I found them to be quite pro-active at finding issues that they can fix under warranty for me. Last time I picked the car up from its 3rd service they had noticed wear to 2 steering arms so replaced them before the warranty ran out.

In my experience of this car the main dealer servicing has probably been better value, it costs more yes but have benefited from things being picked up and fixed straight away.

Non main dealers have to be VAT registered, use offical manufacturer parts & perform the same service as what the schedule in your manual advises for the warranty to remain.

Citroen dealers in different area might have different prices for the same service as well so ring around a few.

I found quite a difference in Vauxhall prices for the exact same service.

Mark_Hewitt

Yep, it can pay you to shop around the main dealers too, they won't all be the same price. It only takes a 1 minute phone call to get a quote.