Dealer's Engine Oil Prices

Is it running to a 'long life' variable service schedule? - ie. does the car tell you when to service it?

If so, it'll be running on Renault spec oil that can only be bought from main dealers.

It's not variable but is it quite a long service interval: every 18000 miles or 2 years.

Perhaps the price is reasonable if it is special long-life oil, but it does look a bit of a rip-off (made worse by the fact they were unable to give my wife any indication beforehand of she should to expect to pay for a standard 36K service - no fixed-price servicing there.)

CK

Yes it's a con pure and simple. Doesn't matter what the service interval is or how good the oil it won't be better or more expensive than the fully synthetics you can buy off the shelf yourself. The dealers just charge you ten times what they pay for it.

I remember donkeys years ago (mid 80s) having a Ford Escort company car. I was away on business when the first service came due so I went into the local Ford dealer there to book a service while I was staying in a hotel. Not my money but I can't stand wasting it even if someone else is paying so I went through the prices with them first and they were after something daft like £5 a litre for the oil. On the shelf in the reception area were 5 litre cans of Motorcraft oil at £4.99 each. I asked what was the difference between the oil they were going to use in the service and that on the shelf for punters to buy.

"Ummmm, it's the same oil sir."

"So why the f*ck are you charging me (or my employer) five times as much to get it out of a bulk drum than in a pre-packaged 5 litre plastic can?"

"Ummm - well we have a pricing differential (we bend you over and ream you up the arse) between retail sales which have to compete with other aftermarket sellers (like Halfrauds) and servicing sales where we have you firmly by the balls, no one gives a shit anyway and some tart in your company's accounts office will just rubber stamp the bill."

So I bought a 5 litre can of oil, gave it back to them and told them to put that in the engine when they serviced it. Plus I wanted the unused bit back for topping up because the engine took less than 5 litres. I never got the balance back but I saved Whitbread £20. I'm sure they were very grateful.

-- Dave Baker Puma Race Engines

Camp USA engineer minces about for high performance specialist (4,4,7)

My favourite is when the garage doing whatever work it is charges you a mark-up on the part that they've supplied, in order to (ahem) cover their costs of obtaining it, i.e. a two minute phone call to the motor factor who then delivers. I once caught a local chain garage (Lex) applying a 45% mark-up on top of the cost of supplied parts.

service - no

Surely they would have given an estimate and then phoned to ask you to authorise any extra work that may have been spotted whilst doing the std service ?

Nick

service - no

Ah, but as far as I can tell they didn't actually do anything beyond the "normal" service (i.e. change plugs, filter, oil etc.). Unfortunately it's the cost of those basic parts that has caught us out.

Re. extra work, they did kindly report that all the brake pads and disks were worn and ought to be replaced (the car has only done 36,000 miles so I'm surprised the disks need replacing, especially as it passed its MOT with flying colours last month). This will cost a further £600+. Needless to say I'm going to get a second opinion...

CK

That's not a surprise at all these days. Modern, asbestos-free pads are

*much* more harsh on discs than old-world pads were.

It's quite common for discs to be worn to the limit every pad change.

But wouldn't the disc thickness have been checked at the MOT?

It may have been within limits at the time of the MOT, or the dealer may be recommending replacement because the discs won't make it to the next service or MOT without requiring replacement.

I'm not defending the dealer, just pointing out that it's not unusual to need discs at that mileage.

In message , Mr Scummy writes

Its not part of the MOT because the tester doesn't know the minimum thickness for each model.

================================ It might be worth a call to your local Trading Standards. There were a couple of cases earlier this year about excessive charging for replacement parts. The judgement in each case was that the customer is entitled to pay only a fair price for parts supplied for a service / repair.

These were parts for gas appliances etc. but the same legal principle applies and technically oil is a replacement part in this context.

Cic.

no as we are not allowed to dismantle anything while testing the vehicle.

I do both, mot vehicles & service them, I have my mot "hat" & my service "hat", for example the legal minimum thickness for a brake pad for an mot is

1.5mm, now while the pads might pass an motwith an advise, they might require changing under the vehicles service schedule.

believe it or not its called being in business as unfortunately we are not all registered charities !!!

Well, I've done getting on for 20,000 miles on pads+disks that "only have 3,000 miles left in them, sir". This is a low-mileage car, so it has been serviced several times since that statement. The fun bit is when the estimate of how many miles left went up to 5,000 miles after I'd done about 10,000 miles after that first statement.

Granted that the journey that this particular vehicle does is not onerous in terms of braking, and I prefer to drive smoothly, rather than accelerate-brake-accelerate-brake, but it still generates a rueful smile when I think about it.

However, the flip-side is, don't do what someone I know did, and drive

400 miles with no brake pads. The car needed new pads, disks and calipers. Apparently, they thought the warning light meant there was less than 30% of the pad left, so it was possibly to do another journey, then book in for the brake pad replacement. The comment was "I thought the brakes felt a bit light."

Sid

I have no problem with fair pay for a fair job done, but charging a 40% markup on a £200 part for the two minutes it took to order it is just taking the piss. I'm sure not everyone is doing it, but that's what the garage in question was doing.

Bear in mind that they would get it at trade discount too.

I had a set of pads and discs last way over 100,000 miles on my last car but I used to do mainly motorway driving. That equated to about 5 years worth of driving.

If your car needs a synthetic oil then it could easily cost a tenner a litre (retail) - just visit halfords and you'll see 4 litres for =A340.

I know garages are in business but yes I'm sure most try to get the most they can out of the customer. I did a complete set of discs, pads and handbrake shoes on a BMW recently and it cost me less than =A3200 in parts. Even at =A3100/hour that would give me a leisurely 4 hours to do it at Renault prices. It's supply and demand, if you don't want to pay take it elsewhere. Dealers rely on getting business to maintain warranties and probably laugh to themsleves at anyone bringing in a car that is out of warranty. The very fact fact that someone takes a car to a dealer tells them that they can probably rip you off.

I see that Makro are selling a brand new Ford Ka (with ABS and PAS) for £3,999 plus Vat, and IMO the way the motor trade is heading with their inflated prices, they're going to wind driving their trade in the same general direction as the now almost defunct domestic electronics service industry.

Eventually customers will purchase a new vehicle with a five-year warranty and the minute they have to start forking out anything resembling a hefty bill, then they'll dispose of it and purchase a new one.

Ivan (Ivan'H' snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

So that's £4,700 - what about on-the-road costs? Or are they pre-reg?

I strongly suspect that it's either some kind of headline (in which case they probably have very few for sale) or they're ones that've been sat in stock somewhere for a considerable period and not to current spec.

Looking at Makro's website, they're plugging DCCook Direct. There's no mention of cheap Kas on either Makros or Cook's websites - the cheapest Cook list 'em is £6k for a pre-reg. Autobytel have one for £5.2k - no mention of pre-reg or not, which I would take to mean not.