How do you minimise car servicing costs?

sourcrates

lifebegins wrote: »

He's happy to have a go doing the front pads himself though but apparently they have to have electronic wear sensors

Not nessessarily, you can buy with or without sensors, but it's just a clip connection.

Various websites sell BMW series 1 front brake pads for around £45-£50, dependant on model.

http://www.carparts4less.co.uk/brake-pads?gclid=CJrdxduW4tACFe-97QoddtgCzw

That's £200 in your pocket.

You can fit brake pads with just pliars and a screwdriver.

MrsTinks

lifebegins wrote: »

at a BMW specialist independent garage. He now needs just the front brake pads doing, but was quoted £250 which seems a lot and just wipes out what I've been trying so hard to scrimp and save from elsewhere.

He's happy to have a go doing the front pads himself though but apparently they have to have electronic wear sensors as well. The £400 for my car included 2 front tyres, and the MOT, but (?? coincidence) the driver's handle broke just an hour after I got it back and that cost almost £200 to fix. Your budget for 2 cars is impressive Essex

Front brake pads - the electronic wear sensors are honestly SO much less complex than it sounds. I promise!

It's a small "sensor" which triggers when your pad gets worn enough because it's partly embedded in the pad. when pad wesars down it makes contact with the disk and that triggers the warning light. It may have these sensors of anything from 1 to all 4 brakes depending on make and model Connecting it is a wire - you plug one out, you plug new on in. Might even be a youtube how to for your model of BMW or worth posting that on the BMW owners forums.

Stop going to anything that states it's BMW specialist - unless your standard mechanic says he can't fix something (it'll be electronic and require a computer to be hooked up - not all garages will have the proprietary diagnostic systems for every make - 95% of the work can be done anywhere though) - Brake pads for the front only (you might need the sensors on top) should be under the £100 I would think for a series 1 BMW...

Balancing tyres on the drive will definitely do - tracking you only need to do if you have uneven wear or if when you drive along or brake your car takes itself off to one side... find a super flat straight road, drive carefully without applying pressure to the steering wheel - does the car drift off consistently to one side? What happens if you brake (start gentle and apply pressure) - does car stay pretty true or does it go off to one side consistently? Whilst there can be other reasons for it veering off it would be a good sign you need tracking looking at. When you look at your tyre tread - is it pretty even in the wear? or is there a bald strip either side, both sides or in the middle - if it's one side of the tyre then you need to get it checked. If the middle or both sides of a tyre is significantly lower than the rest then you need to check your tyre pressures

(I've tried not to get too technical - really sorry if I've over simplified or haven't made it simple enough - it's a tricky thing to work out how in depth to get )

MrsTinks

sourcrates wrote: »

Not nessessarily, you can buy with or without sensors, but it's just a clip connection.

Various websites sell BMW series 1 front brake pads for around £45-£50, dependant on model.

http://www.carparts4less.co.uk/brake-pads?gclid=CJrdxduW4tACFe-97QoddtgCzw

That's £200 in your pocket.

You can fit brake pads with just pliars and a screwdriver.

Pretty much Although if the pad DOES have a wear indicator then you would either need to disconnect that wire properly or just install a new one - I promise they're really not that complicated to do

And Sourcrates is nearly right - pliers, screwdriver and usually cups of coffee or tea is needed

And go on his price - I was just guessing based on cars I've had - he actually looked them up for you lol

Bertrum

The fact a car has a 'load of computers' has absolutely no bearing of whether you can service it or not.

Everything can be completed at home that a garage would do. However there are occasions when a special tool is required.

Even the service indicators can be reset yourself (google has the answer)

I would advise that a complete novice does not attempt brakes themselves, however if you take care and follow the workshop manual instructions you should be fine.

All modern techs do if something is wrong or the engine management light is on is plug it in and read the code, then replace whatever the code relates to. You can do this at home, code readers can be bought for as little as £40. You can reset the code yourself and see if it comes back on, a garage will charge you £80 for that. If it comes back on, replace the corresponding sensor.

Garage mechanic's don't 'fix' things anymore they just replace them. 'lots of computers' don't stop you doing that...

I have a 5 year old BMW 6 series.....which probably has the most 'computers' you can get, and do all servicing and repairs myself.

DrWatson1

Bertrum wrote: »

You can do this at home, code readers can be bought for as little as £40. You can reset the code yourself and see if it comes back on, a garage will charge you £80 for that. If it comes back on, replace the corresponding sensor.

Incidentally, I paid £13 for mine after my local garage charged me £50 for diagnostics....

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005FOIC3I/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I'm trying to do more of the servicing jobs myself after my last service and MOT cost £400 as well.

EssexHebridean

NEVER let a main dealer source and supply tyres for you. They'll go with whatever branded tyre is "recommended" for your car (ie whichever tyre company gives the biggest kickback) and will charge a hefty markup on top. Another thing on tyres - check them yourself, don't take a garage's word for whether they need doing - a main dealer will do them at "advisory" level whereas that probably gives you another couple of months, depending on mileage, to course the replacements.

In fairness a lot of our relatively low running costs comes down to careful choosing of cars in the first place. Although both are diesels, they are both of an engine size that means £30 p/a tax. That helps. Likewise we're both relatively low on insurance now - just over £200 per year each. They also both do in the region of 60 MPG which helps keep that side of things down too.

Oh - breakdown cover as well - ignore the "big players" and look at smaller ones - we've been with AXA breakdown for a couple of years and they were excellent when we needed to use them. A fairly comprehensive policy costs us £58 per car, per year.

To be honest the bill for your car sounds less reasonable than the bill for your OH's, bearing in mind the two vehicles involved!

leespot

lifebegins wrote: »

Thanks everyone.

My car is a 5 year old Fiat 500- I don't think it has many computers.
OH's is a 7 year old BMW 1 series- he seems think you can't really do anything much yourself on it because of the computers. The £400 for the BMW was for the MOT, service and 2 tyres at a BMW specialist independent garage. He now needs just the front brake pads doing, but was quoted £250 which seems a lot and just wipes out what I've been trying so hard to scrimp and save from elsewhere.

He's happy to have a go doing the front pads himself though but apparently they have to have electronic wear sensors as well. The £400 for my car included 2 front tyres, and the MOT, but (?? coincidence) the driver's handle broke just an hour after I got it back and that cost almost £200 to fix. Your budget for 2 cars is impressive Essex

We don't have any mechanic friends sadly and I don't know much about cars (kudos to Mrs Tinks). Maybe I should try and remedy that.

I guess I'm looking for some reassurance that having the oil and tyres done and making sure the levels are okay will mean I'm not compromising on safety. Obviously I wouldn't want to risk something awful happening e.g. the car seizing or brakes failing etc. when driving my kids around but the servicing costs do seem horrendous.

Will look at tyres on the drive- thanks.
Do you need the balancing/ tracking stuff they add on, and if so , can that be done on the drive too?

BMW main dealer are doing front brake pad and sensor replacements for approx £169 - your local independent seems expensive? Incidentally, I found that to be the case recently when I needed a replacement key for my partners Audi - local independent wanted £295 and the main dealer price was £230.

C_Mababejive

I have a Rigid tool.

I do my own oil and filter changes using the manufacturers oil filter and recommended grade of high quality oil . If i go to my local dealer to buy the oil filter over the counter it costs more than if i order it mail order from another main dealer who supplies it cheaper and with a washer for the sump.

lifebegins

This is all quite a revelation! I had no idea that it was possible to diagnose faults with coders from Amazon. And I (perhaps wrongly) assumed that specialist independents were pretty much always cheaper than main dealers. Thanks for your advice and for checking prices- much appreciated.

I can see I need to spend some time looking at the breakdown of these maintenance costs rather than assuming the MOT/ servicing/ tyres "package" from the independent garage is going to give the best value. I can see there is a lot of money to be saved and I feel more confident about tackling this now- thanks again.

Mrs_Ryan

OH pays a service plan monthly for his car and always has. He has the servicing done at the main dealership and when he's traded both cars in (despite the fact the last one was an MOT failure because it was utterly cream crackered) he's got a higher trade in because of full Toyota service history. We don't have a lot of choice as OH is disabled and can't even operate his own bank account let alone mess about with the car! He also drives a lot of miles to and from work so has to make sure his car is in optimal condition at all times.