Dealer Servicing

If you have a mechanic you trust then there is no need for dealer servicing (apart from, as you mentioned, the value and even that will be minimal).

We have a family friend who does our service/MOT work etc and have never found him to be inferior to a dealer, in fact one of my few encounters with dealershit mechanics was at shitroen where they significantly overcharged for work that caused the car to take a further two trips back there to be put right.

I woudn't bother :o)

Save the money and keep thinking about that lovely remap ;o)

Mason

Find out what the price difference is - if its not much more, use your dealer (assuming you don't have 5,000,000 horror stories about how crap they are :) ) simply because it does make claiming on the warranty easier if you have to - although legally as long as the other garage services it to manufacturers specs they still have to honour the warranty, it just makes it easier for them to wriggle out doesn't it, although in my experience, they cave and do most things on warranty, especially in the first year, my mate knackered his Corsa's clutch doing some insanely stupid things, and they replaced it under warranty.

Citroen dealers are a special case tho :) The one in Scarborough is LAUGHABLE - the one a little way away, Broach Hill, is very good, and if you tell them Scarborough couldn't fix a problem, they laugh and mock them for a bit. They get quite a lot of work from people who have tried and failed to get things fixed at Scarb :) I usually hear more good than bad about Skoda dealers.

Shitroen are awesome.

Some sponge rubbed the cornr of my front bumper in a car park, the damage was an area on the corner about 6 inches square.

how much did citroen want to fix this??

My local bodyshop did an astonishing job for £70. When they gave me the quote I said..

"so thats not the cost of a new bumper then? I only want it spraying"

""no"

"so how much is a new bumper?"

(mumbled) "£350 mate"

"Tosser, Bye"

Mason

Dealer service it until the warranty expires then get someone else to do it.

Fraser

A mate of mine took his VTS to the dealer he bought it from (he bought it, the cambelt went 2 weeks later...), whilst in there, the mechanic stuck his hand in the fan, chopping himself nicely, and breaking the fan. They tried to charge him for the fan...

exactly what i'd do! toyota are crap round my way! so many bad horror stories and the prices are mental too! they say it's because my MR2 is an import yet it shares parts with UK MR2's and the Celica GT4, and the UK MR2 was built in japan so there technically imports too really :)

In europe, you don't even have to do that now. Just get it serviced by a garage that can show it follows the dealer service procedures and checks, adjusts and replaces the required parts, and get them to stamp the book at the required time, and the warrenty is still intact.

The dealer servicing *doesn't* help to sell it, assuming you're just gonna part-exchange it against your next car.

The last three cars that I've part-exchanged, the dealer hasn't given two hoots what kind of history they've had. They didn't even bother starting them up - they just give a quick 5 second look over the bodywork and interior, ask you the mileage, and come up with a price.

In any case, let's say the none-dealer-history takes £500 off the car's value for a private sale. You're gonna spend *LOTS* more than £500 in dealer-servicing over a few years - so you're still losing out !

I use a local indy garage for all my work, and he's great. I've got no intention of ever visiting a main-dealer, unless I have no other choice. Make sure you obtain the dealer's service schedule for your car though, so you know exactly what needs doing and when. Mine's in my owner's manual, but yours may not be.

cool then no f*ck the gay dealers and there OTT pricing! :)