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General 1st Year Service cost (your having a laugh!!)

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General 1st Year Service cost (your having a laugh!!)

I do about 8k per year. I will check what it covers but she did mention it is my money saved with them. I think I will need a low mileage, an 18k, and another life mileage. If course I could put £16 in my savings each month but it would probably disappear lol.
 
With the majority of these monthly payment schemes you would be better off opening a bank account and depositing the monthly payment in that instead of giving it to the dealership. After three years of paying for services you will almost certainly have cash to spare.
 
Not really relevant, but you got me thinking reading all of this.

Well, here goes.

Once I owned a car, not a Fiat car, had that car for more than 10 years, already had some 20 thousand miles when I got it. Previous owner had done all services by the book.

Now I have to admit that I did not do a lot of miles in that car cause I use a motorcycle as well, however I never serviced that car in 10 years, no oil change, no filters, no spark plugs, no timing belt, no nothing, only every couple years I added a bit of oil to keep the level up. And this was the kind of oil that you get in discount supermarkets, the cheapest kind oil that exists, nevermind type of oil etc.



After the 10 years elapsed with no service at all, something major did brake in that car. It was the drivers electric window motor.
 
I would have thought the same myself, but no, it was not.

The engine in question was a 4 cylinder in line petrol injection, 1749 cc (half of that is a TA engine) with nothing fancy on it, no turbo, no EGR, no direct injection, no cam angle variation or other advanced intake manipulation systems and, of course, no high power, so it tolerated this very well.

I definitively wouldn't try this on an engine having any of the above, or any new (zero mile) engine for that matter.


The car in question was a Citroen C5 made back in 2001.
 
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Checked with Vospers. The £520 is essentially for a low mileage, an 18k and another life mileage. I won't need the low mileage as I will go straight to 18k but will have oil and filter from an independent (with no book stamp). The 18k costs £320 at Vospers as it includes a hydraulic fluid change. I don't need the last service as I will be trading the car in for another new one (pcp).
 
Bigredbus4468 said:
Checked with Vospers. The £520 is essentially for a low mileage, an 18k and another life mileage. I won't need the low mileage as I will go straight to 18k but will have oil and filter from an independent (with no book stamp). The 18k costs £320 at Vospers as it includes a hydraulic fluid change. I don't need the last service as I will be trading the car in for another new one (pcp).
Click to expand...

Thanks for finding out the info about the service plan.:)

On the face of it, the fact you get three services is good. But £320 for an 18k service and brake fluid change? Shocking!:eek:

As you say though, you may as well just get a genuine oil filter etc and go to an independent for year one, and then go back to the main dealer for your 18k stamp for year two.

But honestly though, that price Vospers quoted is at least £70-80 more than it should be. Brake fluid and extra labour is £50 tops (and even then I am being generous!), and given that my dealer (Roundswell in Barnstaple) did an 18k service + wheel swap for £187 all in....well, you see what I mean! Even if you add on a brake fluid change, it's nowhere near £320:rolleyes:
 
Stoneacre Fiat are asking for £180 for the first (early at my request) service - oil change, filters and a few other things which I've forgotten.

Annoyingly, I don't have any ramps or owt so I can't service it myself really and I've got a thousand mile round trip coming up over Christmas so need it done ASAP.

I'll post exactly what they'll do for £180 when I get the bill :)
 
Just plumbed all my TA details into Halfords Auto Centres and they do an interim service for £79, add £22 if you want fully synthetic oil.

I think that is very good value!
 
Ulpian said:
It concerns me that they give you a choice of oil, since TAs are supposed to be very oil sensitive.
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Not just the TA, they all need the correct Fiat specification oils. Castrol Edge 5w40 matches this in my case, a 1.2 500. I got a tub on a good cheap offer recently ready for top ups and next change.
 
Well I almost had a heart attack when I collected my car this afternoon.

£307!!!!!

They carried out the following:

Replaced 'Sealing Gasket' (?)
Topped up Screen wash
Replaced Air Filter
Replaced Filtering Element
Replaced both Spark Plugs
Use 'Premium'Oil.

Parts = £181

Then labour added up to a total of £135!!

On the good side

They collected the car from work (and I picked it up at my choosing)
Solved a rattle that appeared over the last few thousand miles - traced it back to a loose air intake pipe in the engine bay.
They replaced the ignition coils under warranty
Washed the car.


So I have some very mixed feelings about this. £307 for a 12,000 mile service seems a lot. And how come spark plugs have to be replaced after 1 year?!
 
EasyPanda said:
Stoneacre Fiat are asking for £180 for the first (early at my request) service - oil change, filters and a few other things which I've forgotten.

I'll post exactly what they'll do for £180 when I get the bill :)
Click to expand...


EasyPanda said:
Well I almost had a heart attack when I collected my car this afternoon.

£307!!!!!
Click to expand...

I don't understand how firstly the cost went from £180 to £307 and then how you were unaware it was so much until you picked the car up. Did they not call you for authorisation BEFORE doing any additional work?

Shouldn't any additional work that needed doing be warranty work if your car is young enough to be in for it's first service?
 
I don't understand either. They must have known they were going to deliver the car and included it in the quote, and since it is a new car anything 'extra' should have been free.

£180 maybe, but not over £300. I'd be having words. It looks like there is too much of this going on.

And what is it with the screen wash? I do that all the time and it costs pennies. I know they charge, but how much?

Rip off!
 
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It's a bit of a weird one really. When I booked it in, the lady told me the system was down so she couldn't see the service costs based on age/mileage etc. She apologised and said she'd call me back when the system was up and running. However, I heard nothing.

The next day I called back and the chap I spoke to also said the system was down but a similar Panda with similar mileage just had its first service and that cost £180.

So when I my bill when I turned up to pick it up, the lady at the desk knew nothing of the £180 for a first service and said this was a normal cost.

And they didn't do ANY additional work. It was just the items I listed above, which are apparently first service items and the labour. They didn't change the tyres or anything like that.

So I guess they just have extremely expensive staff. However, I am writing an e-mail to Stoneacre to ask if this bill is right - it seems too excessive.
 
EasyPanda said:
£307!!!!!

They carried out the following:

Replaced 'Sealing Gasket' (?)
Topped up Screen wash
Replaced Air Filter
Replaced Filtering Element
Replaced both Spark Plugs
Use 'Premium'Oil.

Parts = £181

Then labour added up to a total of £135!!
Click to expand...

Something wrong with the pricing somewhere. The cost of the parts being at least double what it ought to total. Do some research for yourself to see - online/shop4parts/Dealer parts department. Even considering the TA having slightly more expensive iridium plugs (only 2 not 4) and the filter element over the 'normal' engines.

As for the labour cost, I repeat this information from the 500 section (based upon the Panda and having the same TA engine) for the labour times, you can work out their hourly rate is extortionate:

500 900cc TA
1.50 hours for 18k service
2.35 hours for 36k service

The original £180 was more like it (if not even too expensive itself).
 
Sounds like another rip-off sadly(n)

When it comes to car servicing, sadly you cannot rely on your dealer to look out for you and give you the best deal. Some dealers value their customers more than others, but it is an all too common sight on here.

You only have to look at this thread to see where being "loyal" will get you with certain dealers:
https://www.fiatforum.com/500/339493-stunned-repairs-required.html

All I would say is the following for any subsequent services:

1. Shop around. Treat getting your car serviced like car insurance. I personally hate the whole charade each year, but at the end of the day you as a customer have to put in the legwork to get a good deal nowadays.

2. Have a look on the Fiat website and see if there are any authorised Fiat service dealers near to you. I have tried this myself, see this thread from a few months ago:
https://www.fiatforum.com/panda-iii/336157-roundswell-fiat-barnstaple.html
You might find that this works out quite a bit cheaper, and I guess that a "service only" dealer might (in theory at least!) be inclined to look after you better.

3. When you do get a quote, ask the dealer to give you a precise breakdown of all the parts etc. You might find that it is cheaper to order all the genuine Fiat parts themselves from somewhere like Shop4Parts.
 
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