Not service

Chucky1234

My first car was a 12 year old Clio brought as a Cat D write off for £150. Kept it for 2 years, done about 13,000 miles a year. All I ever had to do was change a tyre and replace the windscreen jet washer, passed both MOT's first time. Then sold it again for £150.

In some situations like what I explained above, I didn't see any point at all in servicing it. Wouldn't recommend if you were planning to keep the car for any length of time though...

flashg67

Don't understand why you'd potentially wreck your investment, and all the problems not having a car causes for the sake of a few quid - at least do an oil & filter change every year

EdGasketTheSecond

I had an old Hillman Minx once; never changed oil or filter; it went on for years until the rust got it. But generally best to do oil changes and filters regularly, then your engine will last almost forever.

uknick

Everybody is, quite rightly, talking about changing the oil.

But don't forget the brake fluid. I ran an AX GT many years ago that only did about 4k per year. It was main dealer serviced annually in accordance with the handbook schedule for a low mileage car but the dealer never changed the fluid for about 8 years. In naïve younger days I assumed the dealer would do what is needed.

One day, the master cylinder failed and no brakes coming off a motorway. Turns out the fluid was so bad it had turned black and rotted the cylinder seals. I'm sure brake fluid is better these days, but it does no harm to get it checked every couple of years.

System

Play wrote: »

Obviously I need the car to pass mot hence the fix.

And I will pay and fix any advisory item. But I find Servicing is a way of us paying money for nothing

Really it isn't. See that thing your car failed its MOT on and depending on what it was could have potentially killed you? A service would have picked it up so you weren't driving around in a potentially dangerous car for months. My last service picked up a slightly worn track rod end which could have ended up as a completely knackered one by the MOT with it affecting the ability to steer the vehicle in that time. The other bonus is that by getting it serviced and doing the repairs I don't end up at the MOT time with a big bill for a pile of things to do and without a car to go to work because its failed and I don't have the money in one go to get it fixed.

A service would pick up worn brake pads so you would only need to change the pads and not end up having to do the discs as well because you didn't get a service, they didn't get checked so the first time you were aware of a problem was when it was metal on metal.

And when you don't change spark plugs when they wear it puts pressure on the rest of the ignition so instead of £20-£40 for a set of plugs its £20-£40 for a set of plugs plus £30 for a set of leads and if you're unlucky another chunk of money for the coil pack and if you're really unlucky and it is a MK6 Fiesta you could end up having to have a new ECU as well at £250 all because you didn't want to spend £20-£40 on a new set of spark plugs.

There are also a raft of things not in a MOT but in a service which can cause catastrophic failure if not checked. You may find this winter that the antifreeze no longer does the job as the MOT doesn't even check the coolant level let alone whether the antifreeze is still any good and the first time you find that out is as water leaks out the radiator or your engine starts running on 3 cylinders. And then you're having to get another car all for the sake of £20 of antifreeze.

I service all of my cars. They all reach 100,000 miles with no faults and pass every MOT. Very few which don't get serviced achieve that and pretty much everyone I know who has a problem the problem wouldn't have existed with regular maintenance.

reeac

Herzlos wrote: »

Friends girlfriend doesn't believe in services. .

Doesn't sound like much of a girl friend.

Jackmydad

EdGasketTheSecond wrote: »

I had an old Hillman Minx once; never changed oil or filter; it went on for years until the rust got it. But generally best to do oil changes and filters regularly, then your engine will last almost forever.

But to be fair, back then a lot of cars that were getting on a bit would burn a fair bit of oil, so the oil changed itself. . .