Car Servicing costs - Stupid!

Davidboy

No doubt this has been stated before but just have to have a rant!!

My daughters' car, a Fiat Seicento, a small basic metal box on wheels, was taken to the Fiat dealer for service, only 2 years old and done 13,000 miles. The garage insisted service cost was £196.23. I assumed as 2 years old needed brake fluid changed etc.

When I asked for breakdown of costs, oil & filter changed, spark plugs changed, air filter changed, apart from that, just checked this and checked that......why oh why do we put up with being ripped off so much.

Martin can't you start a garage servicing rip off campaign???? Please !

Rant over.

D

BenL

You don't need to take it to a main dealer.

They cannot penalise you anymore by ripping up the warranty.

Each manufacturer has slightly different rules but they are usually any mechanic who is VAT registered, uses official parts in your case Fiat and does the same activities as they would.

Ben

Davidboy

Thanks Benl, yes I did know you can take it any VAT registered dealer, but I wanted work done on it under the warranty as well.

Also I did ring around a few garages and they all quoted around the £200 mark...why?

I know labour makes up most of the bill, but you can't tell me that a service today takes any longer an hour to do if that. Most cars are now maintenance free apart from the usual oil and different filters, what else is there to do on a service?? It is a rip off. On most cars now, the garage connects the car to a computer and the car tells the computer what is wrong!

D

italiastar

Take it to Italy ..........

I was talking to a VW approved service agent about servicing for my Alhambra. He said that the cost for a 2 year service would be 40 euros for the oil and 15 euros for an oil filter - when I queried the labour charge he looked very puzzelled - I explained further and he said "how can I charge you labour, when the job takes 20 minutes and most of that time is spent waiting for the oil to drain?" he went on to explain that they only charge labour when actually carrying out repairs to the car. Interstingly, the same service cost me £200 (300 euros) in the UK and took 90 minutes !!! - the suppyling dealer even quoted for further unecessary work making the total £370.

tomstickland

When I asked for breakdown of costs, oil & filter changed, spark plugs changed, air filter changed, apart from that, just checked this and checked that......why oh why do we put up with being ripped off so much

At motor factors...
oil £5
filter £2
plugs £12
air filter £6
total parts £25
total time to do...15 minutes maybe.

Get a small indpendant garage to do it and it'd probably cost £50-£60. So you're paying an extra £130 to have your service book stamped.


Personally I do it all myself, but then again I've never bought a car with a service book.

IvanOpinion

Can I back DavidBoys call for a campaign on this. It is one of the areas were we are obviously being ripped off. I appreciate that in modern cars there are fuel filters, oil filters, air filters, hepa filters, oil, aircon charging etc. etc. but £180 for a basic service is ridiculous (and this does not cover all the above items). I have been told my car goes through a cycle of £180, £240, £320 - and I really do not know what I am getting for my money.

I often take my cars to Kwikfit (or similar) who carry out a basic service for about £70 and tell me of anything else that is wrong or questionable and should be looked at by the main dealer. Most services are just filter and oil changes and 5 minute inspection.

Ivan

N9eav

Unfortunately most of us are no longer able to do anythign to cars. Everything is computer based and if you touch it the warantee goes out of the window.


Last year I asked my local garage to service the wifes old Fiesta and put an MOT on it. It cost me £300. £125 of that was labour, plus VAT on top and £41 for the MOT. The parts were minimal.

I was shocked as I knew the garage mechanic too and could not believe how much the labour charge was.

This year the MOT was £40, nothing I can do about that. I bought all oil, filters and plugs for £23 and will do it myself.

It may be worth going on a car mechanic, service type evening class. It's a piece of cake to do simple service jobs and could save you a bundle on simple small cars.

Also failing that, anyone can change an air filter in 2 minutes. The local tyre/exhaust fit places also do oil changes for £10 on most cars.... and they can look at the brakes for a few quid more.

Lyndsay_21

when my OH got his car serviced by a man who comes out and it cost him £117 thats for parts, a FULL service and the guys time. Which i think is reasonable seeing as the car had sat on a driveway for 3/4yrs and needed a service anyway. plus he gave us some extra fuses and some other bits. dont know if this is cheap or expensive??

tomstickland

I was running a garage then I'd want £70 per hour minimum for labour. When you think about overheads, waste disposal and the fact that it's bloody hard work. Then again, many manufacturers don't make any real money selling new cars (they're so cheap for what they are), then servicing is one area that they can make a good return.
Modern cars are just as easy to work on as old ones. It's only the warranty issues that prevent independant garages getting on with it.

spl0dge_2

DO NOT take your car to a garage.
I repeat.
DO NOT take your car to a garage.
unless it STOPS completely and you can't fix it yourself.

BFG will tell you......
Always take your car to a garage.



take his advice and.....



get ripped off and pay lots for things that don't need doing. (yeah, but you'll save more in the long run!!!)
let them break things that would have continued to work for the next 5 years if they had not been touched. (yeah, but, they really were worn out)
replace parts that do not need replacing (better safe than sorr££££) .
garages know best, always take their advice.


£200 for a service, replace the oil and filter, check a few things

Pennywise

Just be wary of the smaller garages. I got sucked-in with one and it cost me thousands, and my car.

I had an ageing car, and like some of the above posters, initially used a main dealer, but started to go to a smaller garage when the warranty ran out. The small garage was very highly recommended by a number of friends who used them, and I must say that I don't believe they intentially caused my problems, it was just the way they worked.

For the first few years of using them, things appeared fine. I had it serviced every six months or so (doing very high mileage) and their bills always seemed low - just the usual filter replacements, the odd tyre, oil changes etc.

Then, one day, the engine stopped on the motorway in the fast lane. RAC towed it to my garage. It turned out the timing belt had snapped and there was a lot of damage to the engine. A few hundred pounds later and it was on the road again.

Then I noticed oil under the engine - it had a leak. I had the car in the garage about 10 times for them to find it. They kept replacing parts but the leak never stopped. Then the clutch and gearbox both needed replacing, apparently due to oil damage from the oil leak they couldn't fix. Another few hundred pounds gone, but at least they fixed the oil leak.

Then I noticed a water leak. Again, in the garage a few times, but they couldn't find anything. They replaced the radiator, replaced a few pipes, but still it leaked. Before long it needed filling with water every few days, the leak was so bad, but still they couldn't find anything wrong. Then, the engine stopped on the motorway again. RAC towed it to the garage again. Turned out the water leak was actually into the engine block and had got so bad, the water virtually poured out as soon as it was filled, engine over-heated and blew - serious damage to the engine. This time I sent it for scrap.

So, the garage, despite being recommended and having given no reason for me to distrust them, were simply incompetent. They didn't change the timing belt at the appropriate service interval, they couldn't find the oil leak and they couldn't diagnose the water leak. I believe that they were doing the minimum possible of work to keep the bills down to give the impression of being a "good" garage. I'd rather someone had spent the proper time and properly dealt with the problems. If that had been at £75 per hour, it would have still saved me money in the long term!