Service due on car I want to sell?

Goudy

MyRealNameToo said:

Frozen_up_north said:

Main dealer servicing is no better than a back street garage... no kidding. They have a list of extras as long as your arm and love to charge for work that isn't needed and omit some pretty basic stuff.

In principle I probably disagree, in practice I agree. 

We had a VW Eos and the servicing manager decided one time to show me the service manual for it and the Golf (on which it was based) and the manual was about 3x the thickness but he said the extra cost in service no way covered the extra time it took. 

So in principle I doubt your average backstreet garage is going to be checking all the pneumatics, drains etc that VW were supposed to check on a full service of an Eos. 

In practice when the roof mechanism broke down in action due to water ingress after 6 days of having the car they phoned me saying they were having problems repairing it because they couldn't open the boot and I had to explain to them that its because the roof is about 1% through the opening process but there's a red ring behind the central arm rest in the back seats which if you pull it will open the boot. So if they dont know how the car operates I am more than a little skeptical on their expertise in doing all the extra checks and service items that they are supposed to. 

The "Technicians" are basically parts fitters.
The have enough training to follow a few simple steps to service the cars in front of them.

When things go beyond simple fitting, they generally panic and phone for a "Diagnostic or Technical Expert".
The person that has had some more indepth training on those makes and models.

It's like you favourite fast food restaurant, they are all trained to the minimum of what they do, there's no need to train them all up to the same standard, otherwise they all want the same pay.

All the basic jobs like cramming it all into a soggy paper bag are done by the one starers.
Two starers will fry your chips.
Three starers burn your burger.
If the ice cream machine f**ks up, they call manager.

Mildly_Miffed

Goudy said:

All the basic jobs like cramming it all into a soggy paper bag are done by the one starers.
Two starers will fry your chips.
Three starers burn your burger.

Not being a frequent visitor to such establishments, it took me a moment to realise you didn't just mean three people gazing gormlessly at a burger burning.

MyRealNameToo

Goudy said:

MyRealNameToo said:

Frozen_up_north said:

Main dealer servicing is no better than a back street garage... no kidding. They have a list of extras as long as your arm and love to charge for work that isn't needed and omit some pretty basic stuff.

In principle I probably disagree, in practice I agree. 

We had a VW Eos and the servicing manager decided one time to show me the service manual for it and the Golf (on which it was based) and the manual was about 3x the thickness but he said the extra cost in service no way covered the extra time it took. 

So in principle I doubt your average backstreet garage is going to be checking all the pneumatics, drains etc that VW were supposed to check on a full service of an Eos. 

In practice when the roof mechanism broke down in action due to water ingress after 6 days of having the car they phoned me saying they were having problems repairing it because they couldn't open the boot and I had to explain to them that its because the roof is about 1% through the opening process but there's a red ring behind the central arm rest in the back seats which if you pull it will open the boot. So if they dont know how the car operates I am more than a little skeptical on their expertise in doing all the extra checks and service items that they are supposed to. 

The "Technicians" are basically parts fitters.
The have enough training to follow a few simple steps to service the cars in front of them.

When things go beyond simple fitting, they generally panic and phone for a "Diagnostic or Technical Expert".
The person that has had some more indepth training on those makes and models.

It's like you favourite fast food restaurant, they are all trained to the minimum of what they do, there's no need to train them all up to the same standard, otherwise they all want the same pay.

All the basic jobs like cramming it all into a soggy paper bag are done by the one starers.
Two starers will fry your chips.
Three starers burn your burger.
If the ice cream machine f**ks up, they call manager.

Or in our local's case, the manager's wife as he's more hopeless than the one stars (something she tells him often). He used to be good with burgers, or more accurately very good at training others on it, but he's too removed these days and he never was good with machines or tech. 

The reason the call was on day 6 however was because the Eos expert had been on holiday, they didnt want me bringing it in until day 5 because of that but the windows wouldnt go up because the roof was in progress and my personal parking space was fully exposed. 

forgotmyname

When I buy a car the stamps in the book are meaningless, as your dealer said an oil change and they will stamp the
book even if the car needs a load of work doing to it.

I want to see invoices for the work done.

Altior

It's not ideal with coinciding a sale of a cheap car with it needing a service. 

Now that you have, the key question is how do you plan to sell it.

If it's to a trader/dealer/auction, I wouldn't bother with any service, personally. It depends upon what the situation is with the MOT too. The service might throw up plenty of work, as well as of course, the cost of the service.

born_again

forgotmyname said:

When I buy a car the stamps in the book are meaningless, as your dealer said an oil change and they will stamp the
book even if the car needs a load of work doing to it.

I want to see invoices for the work done.

GDPR.
Dealer should not be handing anything over with previous owners name. Hence why V5 no longer has this info.

chrisw

I had a cheap service (£150 instead of dealer £450) done on my 8yo Volvo just before selling it and the We Buy Any Car type places were happy to accept it as FSH.