I was driving to the dentist this morning and my oil warning light started flashing. As it was only a mile from the Fiat dealer I thought I'd drop in and ask them about it. As I pulled up outside the screen on the instrument cluster said "change engine oil".

I spoke to the service dept and they said as it's a multijet it would need an oil change, at £68. I said that was strange, as service interval is 18k or 1 year and the car isn't a year old yet and has only done 6400 miles.

They offered me my first service now (£210!), but I said just do the oil for now.

Is this normal? And if so, does this mean I'm going to need an oil change every 6000 or so miles? When I bought the car I was led to believe service was every 18k, not 18k + oil change twice a year.

I have to say I'm not impressed right now

Do you do a lot of short trips or journeys that involve a lot of town / city driving? This has been covered a LOT in this Forum.

I have had a quote from Stoneacre for a 1 year service on my 500 (bought in Feb, registered in Dec08) £170! Local service centre £50 +VAT. And yes they will do a full service as per the manual. Doesn't take a genius to work out where my 500 is heading....
N

npmaylesby said:

I have had a quote from Stoneacre for a 1 year service on my 500 (bought in Feb, registered in Dec08) £170! Local service centre £50 +VAT. And yes they will do a full service as per the manual. Doesn't take a genius to work out where my 500 is heading....
N

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Full service for £50+ VAT all parts included? I very much doubt it.

306maxi said:

Full service for £50+ VAT all parts included? I very much doubt it.

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I agree with 306maxi... not a prayer £50 for a Full Service....

I get all my servicing done by a good independant, always have, I expect to pay £200 for a full Service, £300+ for a major service. Proper parts and lubes etc are expensive.

Dealer quotes were £350 & £450 respectively, all my servicing has been done in accordance with Tthe Fiat schedule, 58,000 miles now.

Well chaps I am afraid that is what they have quoted, to do a full first year service. Oil change etc...

£170 from Stoneacre was well over the odds!

I wouldn't say I do a lot of short trips, and I do very little town driving. I drive 30 miles per day, mix of country lanes and faster 'A' roads.

npmaylesby said:

Well chaps I am afraid that is what they have quoted, to do a full first year service. Oil change etc...

£170 from Stoneacre was well over the odds!

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Why spend £10k on a car then not give it the tlc it deserves

If your girlfriend told you she needed £60 spending on her would you refuse??

npmaylesby said:

Well chaps I am afraid that is what they have quoted, to do a full first year service. Oil change etc...

£170 from Stoneacre was well over the odds!

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Do us a favour go to www.shop4parts.co.uk and total up the price of a factory oil filter and factory air filter. Then find out the price of 3l of oil which is of the proper standard. Then think hmmmmm how are they going to make money on this? The answer is by cutting costs on the parts they put in. To keep your warranty you MUST use genuine parts.

for 50 quid you probably getting a stamp in the book and pretending to change parts

dave said:

for 50 quid you probably getting a stamp in the book and pretending to change parts

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Oh well at least it'll make for a fun time in a couple of years time if people have warranty problems with their engine and they have treacle in there instead of oil because it never got changed

306maxi said:

Do us a favour go to www.shop4parts.co.uk and total up the price of a factory oil filter and factory air filter. Then find out the price of 3l of oil which is of the proper standard. Then think hmmmmm how are they going to make money on this? The answer is by cutting costs on the parts they put in. To keep your warranty you MUST use genuine parts.

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Or parts of equivalent or superior quality

This would normally be most well known branded items, excludes weird stuff like copies from China etc for example.

Well my response has been covered off already, £50 + vat for a service they wont be using decent oil etc imo

Ffoxy said:

Or parts of equivalent or superior quality

This would normally be most well known branded items, excludes weird stuff like copies from China etc for example.

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The problem is that there is no standard for filters and plugs etc so buying genuine eliminates any chance of Fiat complaining

mattpolley said:

I wouldn't say I do a lot of short trips, and I do very little town driving. I drive 30 miles per day, mix of country lanes and faster 'A' roads.

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OK back on topic, the DPF in your car is reporting to the ECU that the car needs an oil change, this is part of how the car helps you look after it. Their is much discussion across all makes about this, maybe have a chat with the DET at your dealership and see what his take is on it, it may be this time it needs it at 6k miles but wont for another 18k miles.

306maxi said:

The problem is that there is no standard for filters and plugs etc so buying genuine eliminates any chance of Fiat complaining

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Yes mate I accept that, particularly under Warranty, you are correct, but there are oils, oil filters and air filters that are as good, I use Fram or Mahle and I have managed to stagger out of warranty to 58,000 miles so far & all runs and sounds good. However, I would never buy an unknown or un-labelled filter or some weird unknown oil from say a Car-Boot sale!

Ffoxy said:

OK back on topic, the DPF in your car is reporting to the ECU that the car needs an oil change, this is part of how the car helps you look after it. Their is much discussion across all makes about this, maybe have a chat with the DET at your dealership and see what his take is on it, it may be this time it needs it at 6k miles but wont for another 18k miles.

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Plus, If your car has not had the latest DPF parameter software update then the DET will be able to do this for you, an independent cannot.

Ffoxy said:

Yes mate I accept that, particularly under Warranty, you are correct, but there are oils, oil filters and air filters that are as good, I use Fram or Mahle and I have managed to stagger out of warranty to 58,000 miles so far & all runs and sounds good. However, I would never buy an unknown or un-labelled filter or some weird unknown oil from say a Car-Boot sale!

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yeah I agree with you Just thinking about it from the PoV of someone who possibly has a problem in future and gets fobbed off because Fiat say the part wasn't genuine and therefore not up to the job.

grimwau said:

Plus, If your car has not had the latest DPF parameter software update then the DET will be able to do this for you, an independent cannot.

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Every week I thank the Gods at Fiat for NOT putting a DPF in my car!

Thanks for the info Ffoxy, very useful. I'll have a word when I go in for the oil change tomorrow.

I'm wondering if the fact that I bought the demo car from the garage has anything to do with it. The first 1000 miles of its life were spent doing test drives and short trips.

And I wish they hadn't put a DPF on the 500, maybe I should trade up to a GP with the 150hp multijet