Is Ford Servicing just a giant scam?

Andrew_Ryan_89

Hi guys,

I have a service plan with Ford and pay £17 per month for it. For that they call me when the car is due for a service and MOT, change the oil, give the car a clean and anything they find that needs doing, you have to pay on top for.

The first couple of services they listed a bunch of stuff that look iffy to me but I ended up getting the tires changed. Recently, and very recently, I started to think the whole thing was a giant sham. It first started when a part of my back licence plate got damaged. Unrelated to that, I took the car in for the usual service and when they called me up to discuss the issues he brought up the licence plate and told me it would cost £30 to replace them. Thinking that was twice the amount I was willing to pay, he told me that they come as pairs and he had to do both despite only the back being damaged.

I laughed this off and left without getting it fixed, or anything fixed that they mentioned (said my tires were in illegal condition and needs to be changed). A few months later I have another service and despite not doing anything to the car, the results were different. To start with, they could change just the back of my licence plate and did so. Suddenly my tires were okay and did not need changing and the recommendation to change the break bads never came up again.

The car is now in service and I got a call. It's been roughly 7 months since the above. Again, tires, though may need changing soon, are okay. She is telling me though that my front break bads are 90% worn and the break disk need replacing ASAP. Doing this will cost me just under £300.

Any advice on the pricing? Thoughts on the service plan? Experienced the same thing?

Despite being good at driving them, I am near clueless when it comes to anything else about cars.

marlot

Brake pads and disks do wear.

Ask them how thick the brake disks are and what the limit is. They should have measured them!

agrinnall

Have you been watching too many episodes of Brake(ing) Bad?

DCFC79

Id get rid of the plan and put the £17 into a bank account and use the money for the MOT's, service etc.

motorguy

Andrew_Ryan_89 wrote: »

Hi guys,

I have a service plan with Ford and pay £17 per month for it. For that they call me when the car is due for a service and MOT, change the oil, give the car a clean and anything they find that needs doing, you have to pay on top for.

The first couple of services they listed a bunch of stuff that look iffy to me but I ended up getting the tires changed. Recently, and very recently, I started to think the whole thing was a giant sham. It first started when a part of my back licence plate got damaged. Unrelated to that, I took the car in for the usual service and when they called me up to discuss the issues he brought up the licence plate and told me it would cost £30 to replace them. Thinking that was twice the amount I was willing to pay, he told me that they come as pairs and he had to do both despite only the back being damaged.

I laughed this off and left without getting it fixed, or anything fixed that they mentioned (said my tires were in illegal condition and needs to be changed). A few months later I have another service and despite not doing anything to the car, the results were different. To start with, they could change just the back of my licence plate and did so. Suddenly my tires were okay and did not need changing and the recommendation to change the break bads never came up again.

The car is now in service and I got a call. It's been roughly 7 months since the above. Again, tires, though may need changing soon, are okay. She is telling me though that my front break bads are 90% worn and the break disk need replacing ASAP. Doing this will cost me just under £300.

Any advice on the pricing? Thoughts on the service plan? Experienced the same thing?

Despite being good at driving them, I am near clueless when it comes to anything else about cars.

Whilst you may see merit in having your (new) car serviced by the franchise, you are on absolutely no obligation to get ANY other work done.

Get the car service by Ford, everything else, take a note of it and tell them you'll come back to them if you want the work done.

Use a local decent mechanic for the maintenance stuff.

The main dealer is simply drumming up work for themselves at your expense - and its a common tactic.

If the car is > say, 4 years old, just find a good local mechanic

agrinnall

One advantage to having your servicing done by Ford is that it gives you 12 months free Ford Assist breakdown service.

Marvel1

For the tyres surely you can check if legal or not.

motorguy

agrinnall wrote: »

One advantage to having your servicing done by Ford is that it gives you 12 months free Ford Assist breakdown service.

I've no issue with servicing by a franchised dealer and there is merit in it, however i wouldnt be signing off any maintenance they "recommend"

agrinnall

motorguy wrote: »

I've no issue with servicing by a franchised dealer and there is merit in it, however i wouldnt be signing off any maintenance they "recommend"

I'm inclined to agree with you, I've had them suggest new tyres when it was blindingly obvious that there was plenty of tread left, and brake replacements that simply didn't need to be done at that time, and were done 10s of thousands of miles later by an independent garage. But the basic servicing itself has always been fine.

System

motorguy wrote: »

I've no issue with servicing by a franchised dealer and there is merit in it, however i wouldnt be signing off any maintenance they "recommend"

Why not? If you're taking your car to a garage its usually because what you know about mechanics would fit on a stamp with room to spare and I doubt you have inspected the vehicle yourself.

As a qualified mechanic the only thing I've found them to be guilty of is over-caution on brake pad wear but that is because they go by the wear indicator grooves machined into the brake pad material rather than using a once widely accepted "advise change due before next service when worn down to 3mm". They also tend to recommend tyre replacement at about the same tread depth too but again that is best advice because wet braking stopping distance drops off a cliff below that and I have always replaced my tyres between 2mm and 3mm without prompting.

motorguy

Tarambor wrote: »

Why not? If you're taking your car to a garage its usually because what you know about mechanics would fit on a stamp with room to spare and I doubt you have inspected the vehicle yourself.

As a qualified mechanic the only thing I've found them to be guilty of is over-caution on brake pad wear but that is because they go by the wear indicator grooves machined into the brake pad material rather than using a once widely accepted "advise change due before next service when worn down to 3mm". They also tend to recommend tyre replacement at about the same tread depth too but again that is best advice because wet braking stopping distance drops off a cliff below that and I have always replaced my tyres between 2mm and 3mm without prompting.

Because you'll pay at least 3-4 times the price that your local mechanic will charge and your local mechanic wont charge you undiscounted main dealer prices for parts.

The mechanic i use charges £12 an hour, uses a decent but sensibly priced motor factors for the parts and doesnt drum up work because hes been "targeted" by his manager to hit a particular revenue target for that month.