Does my car really need a service?

ontheroad1970

Ah what would we do without Fred?

Brie

We used to take our car to the dealership for servicing until we realised they then took it to an independent for the work as they didn't have the capacity to do it themselves.  By going directly to the independent we saved a lot of money.  

VW was the worse as they would top up the washer fluid and charge the price of a full litre of authentic branded VW washer fluid.  

BOWFER

Alanp said:

I’d take it to the dealer to keep your warranty, yes you can go elsewhere but should something major go wrong then Hyundai will look at anything to get out of honouring that warranty 

We need to get away from this thinking!
You DO NOT need to go to the main dealer and provided the dealer that does the servicing uses the correct specification parts, Hyundai would have no reason at all to deny a warranty claim.
My leased Nissan Juke was exclusively serviced by a local independent at big savings (money and time).
They listed the Nissan part numbers on the receipt and I had zero issue with any warranty work on the car (new alloys and a new aircon compressor)

BOWFER

FWIW, we had a Hyundai IX35 and used the main dealer at that time.
We only did 18000 miles in it and the servicing cost us a total £650.00
I wrote a letter of complaint to Hyundai saying their servicing was more expensive than a Porsche for the equivalent miles and got a sizeable refund from them.

It was these costs that prompted me to start looking at independents instead, even for new cars.
I will certainly be looking for a local EV specialist for my Leaf, as Nissan's servicing costs for it are silly when they do next to sod all.

BOWFER

Brie said:

We used to take our car to the dealership for servicing until we realised they then took it to an independent for the work as they didn't have the capacity to do it themselves.  By going directly to the independent we saved a lot of money.  

VW was the worse as they would top up the washer fluid and charge the price of a full litre of authentic branded VW washer fluid.  

Garage near me is replacing twin turbos on a nearly new BMW, subcontracted to them by the local BMW dealer.
The owner will never know.
Neither will he ever know the reason for the turbo failure is the fact he bought a pre-paid servicing plan and the dealer didn't actually change the oil at all (so the bearings failed in both turbos).
I had my suspicions about pre-paid service plans and this confirms it.
I'll never buy one.false economy,.

seatbeltnoob

why do people buy cars brand new but they can't afford a £300 annual service.

BOWFER

Bigwheels1111 said:

I was lucky I had taken out a 5 year service plan in 2016 for £13.42 a month, £805.20 in total.

I had a long chat with a local independent garage, highly respected and he gets warranty work farmed out from the local BMW dealer.
He's totally against prepaid service plans, saying the dealers basically ignore cars on these in favour of cars that are paying now.
They've had your money, it's gone, they're not interested any more.

BOWFER

seatbeltnoob said:

why do people buy cars brand new but they can't afford a £300 annual service.

I don't think it's about that, really.
it's about not spending unnecessarily, and it's certainly annoying to be faced with manufacturers who stick with fixed yearly services when the likes of Covid may mean you've done very few miles since the last one.
People berate the likes of BMW as expensive, but their variable servicing can work in your favour.
I had one BMW for nearly three years and it only needed one service at a very reasonable price.
Our Evoque also doesn't need a service until 2 years or 20000 miles from new.

Grumpy_chap

seatbeltnoob said:

why do people buy cars brand new but they can't afford a £300 annual service.

Because they can't afford the car in the first place.

The mix of cars on the road is totally out of proportion with salaries.  Either there is a phenomenal amount of smoke-and-mirrors for new cars (PCP) or a lot of "hidden" money flowing or both.

[Deleted User]

BOWFER said:

seatbeltnoob said:

why do people buy cars brand new but they can't afford a £300 annual service.

I don't think it's about that, really.
it's about not spending unnecessarily, and it's certainly annoying to be faced with manufacturers who stick with fixed yearly services when the likes of Covid may mean you've done very few miles since the last one.
People berate the likes of BMW as expensive, but their variable servicing can work in your favour.
I had one BMW for nearly three years and it only needed one service at a very reasonable price.
Our Evoque also doesn't need a service until 2 years or 20000 miles from new.

That could explain why they have such a terrible reliability record?