Car servicing costs are TOO damn high!

Hi

Cheers = opportunity might well exist but the extremely high start up costs, extremely high operational costs, extremely biased to consumers laws tendancy in the UK as well as plenty of current reputable main dealers, independent & Specialist garages make it a very high risk.

Cadenza - $65 for a 'full service'...  just 5 years ago..   would you mind saying which actual make and model of car you had?!!  reason I say it that unless you had some sort of super special discount somehow, even the cheapest branded cars I've never heard of having a 'full service' at £40'ish !!

Alan B - Yes, sometimes well documented experience on car forums can give you great pointers. The 'Reason' main dealers often do the 'replace the part' thing is of course, to get a bigger sale, however, from safety guidelines within the dealer itself, it's protocol. Part of it is of course to do with customer service and safety from the main dealers point of view - too many times in the past, when main dealers 'have' wiped things off, customers then come in saying that's all that was done, the part failed sometime later and demand everything to be fixed at cost to the dealer. As you can imagine, dealers don't want that kind of liability anymore.

NYBrummie - Which make and model of car do you have !?! also, tyres are consumables, depending which tyres you have, 2 years can be an excellent level of working life. It also depends on the mileage done and then of course if they're premium, mid level or budget tyres. The worst i ever had was when brand new rear tyres would last me 5 weeks before I was down to the threads and at £255 a pop, for a few months until I had a special part fitted, I just had to take that hit.

Et al - As I mentioned in my first response, it really does depend on which make and model your car is as to how much routine and scheduled servicing costs, and which bits are needed at specific intervals be they time or mileage related.

I do know of a friends car where every 18 months or so, it's an engine out job to replace the clutch and the bill for that major service with all else that needed to be done was around the £9-11,000 level !

There are various links I can and will give for a few companies etc that perhaps can offer some savings. My knowledge and contacts tend to be BMW's only, but for common items like Tyres and replacement parts etc there's some good sites and specialists out there I'm sure the UKY community would appreciate!

Cheers, DtM! West London & Slough UK!

There are various links I can and will give for a few companies etc that perhaps can offer some savings. My knowledge and contacts tend to be BMW's only

Well I'm sure there canny be many UKY folks on here who drive a BMW!

RE: the Ford's sweating power steering pump, I checked and monitored the pump oil level at the time of the quote, and knew it was just a plain rip-off, a work colleague mentioned Muriestonautos and its been 5 years since and I've still got my original pump and the dealer lost a customer.

NYBrummie - Which make and model of car do you have !?! also, tyres are consumables, depending which tyres you have, 2 years can be an excellent level of working life. It also depends on the mileage done and then of course if they're premium, mid level or budget tyres. The worst i ever had was when brand new rear tyres would last me 5 weeks before I was down to the threads and at £255 a pop, for a few months until I had a special part fitted, I just had to take that hit.

Renault Grand Scenic.  I have Bridgestones on the back.  I did around 18k on them.  After inspecting myself, the "bald" tire he was referring to was the shoulder of the tire and not the centre tread, that still has a good half-centimeter before getting to the nub.

When we were in the UK we always used Nationwide - I think they're associated with Halfords now. But we were AA Members and when we had our car serviced - a MAJOR service and they also changed the cam belt (think taking your engine apart & putting it back together again), oil & filter, lube, new air filters, transmission flush, cooling system flush, did the brakes, the MOT plus a few other bits and it came to just under £800 - with our discount we paid less than £500...quite worth it I may add and the Major service is good for 2 years.

Oh, this was on a 2001 Ford Focus CL and had about 70,000 on it at the time of service...we even took it in a few weeks before we sold the car early this year when the brake lights stopped working, they diagnosed it, fixed the faulty wires & replaced the blown bulbs (3 of them) for £18...took them an hour to find the fault. But the price was right -- again with the discount.

I had pretty normal cars in the States--a Honda Civic and later a Chevy Prizm.  Maybe there were regional differences in the cost.  You heard Cheers say he pays £24.24 for an oil change, and I only lived one state over from there.  I didn't pay anything near what I pay here for car servicing.

Hi,

Alan B - plenty of foreign immigrants into the UK will drive BMW's! I'm sure UKY has it's fair share of owners!

NYBrummie - 18K miles on a set of tyres is quite good and to be expected. If you tyres are wearing unevenly, it points to a suspension setup issue. I'd advise you have that looked at and checked over and any worn or damaged components replaced, and then everything adjusted correctly.

webyJ - On a Ford Focus and it's 'major service' interval, that looks to be about right really.

Cadenza - I'm pretty sure that if you paid and are thinking perhaps $65 for a 'full service' then you were 'actually' only paying for an 'oil service' and if you were told other items had been checked and replaced, I suspect you were lied to. £40 doesn't even buy the actual oil required for a full service on many cars nowadays for instance! You'll 'generally' find that an 'Oil Service' will be around that £29-59 kind of price range. You're oil and oil filter will be changed, you pay and off you go. Many cars will then require an 'interim' service. This is where many aspects will be checked over and all fluids topped up, perhaps items like wipers, headlamp aim adjustments, tightening of handbrake cables, a squirt of grease etc etc done. The oil might be changed and the filter left in place, things like fuel filters, air filters might also be checked and replaced only if deemed required. Pricing on this sort of service will be substantially more than an Oil Service. Lastly, the 'Major' service intervals are the big service items as mentioned earlier.

Some modern cars can indeed go 2 years without needing a major service, sometimes longer. As I said in my first response, it does depend on which car you have, mileages covered and any specifics that particular car/model might need. Some cars need an interim service every 3 months for instance. I'd be very very surprised to see a full service at around £40 !

Cheers DtM! West London & Slough UK!

I know the difference between an oil change and getting service done, so can you please stop talking to me like I'm an idiot?  I also know to go to reputable garages that don't lie about what they do.  I'm growing weary of this.  I know what I paid, so please just let it go.  This is silly.

DtM, you keep getting hung up on the term "full service," but for most people, most of the time, with most vehicles, all they need is an oil change.  A "full service" oil change really, really shouldn't be expensive.

Bottom line:  If a person feels like they're getting ripped off....they're probably right.  (Which doesn't mean that everyone else in the country isn't getting ripped off as well.)

I've seen it happen in America were (or is it where?)you take your car into a dealership and when they write up the work order they tell you it will cost $90 to find out what is wrong (diagnose). I feel like saying well fix it for $30 and then we'll decide about spending money on diagnosing. Grurrr.
Where I live now the independent garages compete with a reputation for honesty. How refreshing!

Hi

Cadenza - Not wishing to, nor intended to talk like that to you at all, I was only going by what you've written! - lets leave it right there as you mention.

woadgrrl - There is differences in service levels, and as I mentioned on my first post, it depends on what car and model it is and it's much more than an 'oil change'.

Cheers - the opportunity of bad garages and work being charged for that actually isn't is a big problem with the car servicing industry - it happens everywhere. There's also plenty of similarly bad independent garages too!

I've given overall reasons as to 'why' this industry and others are considered to be 'pricey' and 'expensive' - business costs are insanely high in the UK and those costs and a profit needs to be covered and made in order to survive.

Cheers, DtM! West London & Slough UK!