Servicing - costs

emeraldbugle

I have variable servicing on my car, which is supposed to be 18,000 miles or every two years, whichever comes first.

My car tells me I need a service, I've only done 13,500 miles and had it 11 months. Is it my driving, that has caused the service indicator to flash up, or are Audi trying to get more money out of us?

I phoned to get a quote for the first service. Warrington Audi quoted me £313.31 and Chester quoted me £213.12. :rolleyes: Why is there such a difference??

taxiphil

Are you sure it's the service indicator that's come on, and not the engine diagnosis indicating some kind of fault?

The prices you've been quoted are ludicrous but typical of main dealers. I think each dealer can charge whatever it wants for parts and service; the price isn't set by Audi. I used to have an Audi and found the cost of parts varied from dealer to dealer.

All it really needs is a change of oil and oil filter which you can have done with high quality oil for under £25 at somewhere like ATS or Kwik Fit. They'll stamp your book too. Then when it approaches 20,000 miles you should also get the spark plugs and air filter changed, but again this would cost a fraction of the amount you were quoted for the service.

DealDrivers_company_representative

it is likely to be just an interim service...most german/swedish cars nudge the driver to have a mid-service period oil check etc.

Servicing generally varies because of labour rates in the dealerships...a dealer in one area can be paying £30-40 an hr more for mechanics than another. An average hourly labour rate in an Audi dealership is c £70-£80 an hour, one central London Audi dealer was recently charging £120 an hour as he had to pay high wages to attract mechanics.

Few charge less than £70 an hour.

Hope that helps.

DavidHM

one central London Audi dealer was recently charging £120 an hour as he had to pay high wages to attract mechanics.

i.e., £12/hour to the mechanic instead of £8? Doesn't entirely explain a difference of £40 per hour charged to the customer, does it?

The whole point of variable servicing though is that there is no fixed mileage interval. If the car says it needs a service, it probably does. If you're doing nothing but driving from Glasgow to London on empty roads at a constant 70mph (highly unlikely I know) over any given distance you're going to go through far fewer cold starts, high revs and so on if you only ever drive to the end of the street (again unlikely).

Therefore without wanting to criticise your driving style, if you do a large number of journeys relative to the miles you actually drive, you will need servicing more frequently. In any event, oil will decay and become less effective after a year or so, so it's not a bad thing to have the service done wihtin a year in any event.

As for there being a difference in price - just go to the cheaper one; that's still not cheap but worth it to maintain the warranty (I know about the end of the block exemption but it's still barely worth the hassle) and the main dealer service history for when you want to sell the car on.

Zoetoes

DavidHM wrote:

i.e., £12/hour to the mechanic instead of £8? Doesn't entirely explain a difference of £40 per hour charged to the customer, does it?

The whole point of variable servicing though is that there is no fixed mileage interval. If the car says it needs a service, it probably does. If you're doing nothing but driving from Glasgow to London on empty roads at a constant 70mph (highly unlikely I know) over any given distance you're going to go through far fewer cold starts, high revs and so on if you only ever drive to the end of the street (again unlikely).

Therefore without wanting to criticise your driving style, if you do a large number of journeys relative to the miles you actually drive, you will need servicing more frequently. In any event, oil will decay and become less effective after a year or so, so it's not a bad thing to have the service done wihtin a year in any event.

As for there being a difference in price - just go to the cheaper one; that's still not cheap but worth it to maintain the warranty (I know about the end of the block exemption but it's still barely worth the hassle) and the main dealer service history for when you want to sell the car on.

Is this what 'motorway miles' means? Been wondering what it meant when I've looked at cars for sale.

DavidHM

That is the reason that cars are advertised as having done a (high) motorway mileage rather than doing lots of short journeys when the engine is cold. However be careful: just because it says it's motorway miles doesn't mean it didn't spend half an hour in traffic getting to the motorway, or that the car was gently driven off the motorway, etc... or indeed even that the car has necessarily been used on the motorway that much at all - there are quite a few ex-taxis, etc. advertised as 180,000 motorway miles when that's actually quite unlikely.

molerat

emeraldbugle wrote:

I have variable servicing on my car, which is supposed to be 18,000 miles or every two years, whichever comes first.

My car tells me I need a service, I've only done 13,500 miles and had it 11 months. Is it my driving, that has caused the service indicator to flash up, or are Audi trying to get more money out of us?

I phoned to get a quote for the first service. Warrington Audi quoted me £313.31 and Chester quoted me £213.12. :rolleyes: Why is there such a difference??

If you have variable servicing it is not done at the fixed mileages / times you quoted. They are fixed servicings. Your car can be set to one or the other. Yours is set to variable. The light is tripped by your style / useage of the car as other posters have said.