Is a car's "service history" a waste of money?

iolanthe07

the build quality of your average american donk is horrific

Really? My son has a US built Ford truck with a ten year/100,000 mile warranty, so they can't be that bad. My US built Nissan Altima was very reliable and had excellent build quality.

LandyAndy

I don't know about other manufacturers but Mazda no longer supply a service 'book'. Servicing within the Mazda dealer network is recorded on their database and the customer is provided with a printout of the entire record when service/recall work is done.

photome

frothey wrote: »

I have an "agreement" after a "disagreement" with the franchise..... long story and I do work in the trade.

As an aside, if you holiday in the UK it's often worth looking to see if there's a dealer near where you are staying - labour rates are the vast majority of servicing cost (along with oil) and it is much cheaper in the south west than london, for example.

Your first post was hardly a fair comparison then, as £120 a year to service an Audi is not available to everyone.

Even local garages around here charge £150/ £175 for a major service

frothey

Bet you could get it cheaper if you tried, even from a main dealer - lots are doing fixed price "deals" at the moment as people are drifting back to independants on price. Even if mine sounds cheap, at a guess it's still only £50 worth of "product" and £70 of labour for at most an hours work, which most garages wouldn't turn away. But lets face it, what the OP is talking about would never be £25 over here - the oil would cost that much! so by the time you add a filter and a bit of labour you are going to be talking £50 quid (min)....x4 and it's no cheaper than what you are paying anyway.

most american dealers are big concerns, lots of bays and you can just drive in and a team of mexicans drop on the car and it's done in 20 mins. unless people are happy to let Kosovans do the same over here and we start using cheap nasty oil, it'll never happen purely on cost.

custardy wrote: »

I disagree
there are too many people who would run death traps without a compulsory test.

there are a huge amount of cars that "mates" put through MOT's though - and the scrappage scheme last year was an eye opener, how some of those cars got through an mot we have no idea.

What about 2 and 3 year old cars though? you could have a 2 year old car with 100k on the clock that potentially doesn't get brakes/lights etc looked at....

getmore4less

What you want is the invoices for everything done to the car not just the stamps in a book.

With variable service intervals these days a modern 4 year old car with 40k on the clock might just be ready for its second servce and will have had one MOT.

If driven carefully it could still have original tyres and brakes.

C_Mababejive

iolanthe07 wrote: »

When I lived in California it was the norm to have an oil change every 3000 miles (5000 at the most). In the nineties this cost around $15 (£10) at Walmarts. Perhaps we don't change our oil often enough; engines there do seem to last a long time, and a quarter of a million miles is not that unusual.

Maybe its because engines tend to be bigger,they are mostly autos so they have a lazy/lax driving style,there is also less stop start and thrash thrash mentality

thescouselander

In terms of mechanical value i'd say yes, it is a waste. If you look at what is done on a service on a modern car all you get is an oil change followed by a list of "check" this that and the other. I perform most of these checks on a regular basis myself anyway.

I'd say the oil change is the main thing and that can be done quite cheaply. Of course if you want to keep your warrantee you'd better have a proper service.

patman99

Perhaps we should adopt the Spanish system. Cars are MOT'ed at a Govt owned centre, and everything that is fitted to the car must actually work, so if the 5-speed in-cab blower only works on speeds 4 & 5, you will be given a set time (I think it is 8 weeks) to get it fixed, or they come and tow the car away and crush it.
In S. Africa there MOT centres are also Govt owned, but they not only MOT the car, but carry-out a full nose-to-tail service as part of the test fee too.

In the UK, the tests are done by independant garages each of whom will have a different idea of what is passable and what isn't. I even had one test centre pass my van, then tell me "next year, you will need to wire-wool the brake pipes to remove the corrosion or it will fail", and this from a Council MOT centre examiner.

Inactive

patman99 wrote: »

Perhaps we should adopt the Spanish system. Cars are MOT'ed at a Govt owned centre, and everything that is fitted to the car must actually work, so if the 5-speed in-cab blower only works on speeds 4 & 5, you will be given a set time (I think it is 8 weeks) to get it fixed, or they come and tow the car away and crush it.
.

Not sure where in Spain, but the ITV ( MOT ) Station that I use doesn't test hardly anything, certainly they have never switched on the blower whilst testing my car.

To be honest, their test is a complete farce.

oldtoolie

In many US states there is an equivalent to the MOT; sometimes it's done at a private garage and sometimes at an official inspection station. The standards vary state to state.

The manufacturers do specify different service intervals in the US and the UK even for the same model of car. I've never found an answer why. I suspect it is because it is what customers expect. With modern oil, I'm sure an annual change is fine. However, things like spark plugs do not need to be changed annually.

A stamped service book is nice but a folder with all of the receipts and records is more important. That is what I keep and look for when I buy a car. That is true in the US and the UK. I have bought plenty of cars without service records but I have paid less than for one with FSH.