General Best price for a low mileage service?
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General Best price for a low mileage service?
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I paid £140 (or was it £145?).
On 27th February this year, I paid £82.75 for a first low mileage service at a Fiat dealer. I changed the pollen filter myself the day before I took it in - cost me £6.50 for a genuine Fiat one from ebay. Fiat service changed the oil and oil filter and did their standard service routine, all hinges were lubricated and whatever else they did. Washed car for us too.
I get the feeling that for a quote of £150, the dealer will hook it up to diagnostics, standard charge to do so is £60 I believe. I specifically instructed the dealer not to hook it up to diagnostic. It didn't require it and I'd already checked to make sure that there were no critical updates required.
I get the feeling that for a quote of £150, the dealer will hook it up to diagnostics, standard charge to do so is £60 I believe. I specifically instructed the dealer not to hook it up to diagnostic. It didn't require it and I'd already checked to make sure that there were no critical updates required.
Why are you taking it for a service? 18000 mile service intervals unless you drive less than 6000 miles per annum. You have driven 9000 miles so you do not need a service until 18000 miles or 24 months.
If you are keen to have an oil and filter change just do it yourself, or get someone to do it for you. No need for a Fiat service until next year.
yeah, frupi? Why are you servicing your car how you want to?????? 
Agreed, he's done over the mileage recommended for a low mileage service but still it is absolutely best practise to have your car serviced annually anyway. I would still say even in this case, a oil and filter change would be a worthwhile with a plug change at 12,000 miles.
Too many people hold too much faith in vehicle manufacturer claims that modern cars are fine with minimal service routines. I live next to the M1, I've seen plenty of newish cars on the hard shoulder in various states of breakdown awaiting recovery, some of which are probably due to 'living by the seat of your pants' servicing routines.
Too many people hold too much faith in vehicle manufacturer claims that modern cars are fine with minimal service routines. I live next to the M1, I've seen plenty of newish cars on the hard shoulder in various states of breakdown awaiting recovery, some of which are probably due to 'living by the seat of your pants' servicing routines.
yeah, frupi? Why are you servicing your car how you want to??????
I don't know, I really can't answer that, I really can't lol
"but still it is absolutely best practise to have your car serviced annually anyway"
Could I ask, who says so?
This really is nonsense. Why would a manufacturer advise you to service your car less regularly than required, and at the same time deny their dealer network some welcome extra work?
I do always change my oil and filter annually, but that is probably just me showing my age, when oil was crap compared to modern oil.
because it makes a car look cheaper to run. The plugs in a 1.2 will most likely be borked after 10k miles or so as jrkitchings plugs thread shows.
"because it makes a car look cheaper to run"
Not sure what you are talking about? This thread is about the twinair engine.
Well you are of course entitled to your opinion. I just personally don't agree with it particularly from an overall vehicle safety check point of view.
An annual service isn't just about checking the oil and plugs and air filter etc. Cars are subjected to many different driving styles, are loaded differently by owners from one vehicle to another, are subjected to extremes of weather and come under some tremendous forces from braking/accelerating etc. From someone who has attended many a road traffic incident, I've seen some unbelievably poorly maintained vehicles that have resulted in horrific outcomes. So I'll stick to my own annual servicing regime thanks.
After all, it's not just mine and my wife's safety I'm thinking of, but that of our passengers and other road users too. I just wouldn't put myself in a position whereby the car didn't have an annual inspection of some kind by a competent skilled mechanic. I don't understand why that would be an issue?
If a car needed a service every 1000 miles then it would be more expensive to run non?
service times may be extended but they expect you to do all your weekly checks and take advantage of dealers free winter safty checks, if you dont do one or both of them its best to get a service every year to make sure some thing isnt going to kill you like a defect inside tyre wall, at least for the first 3 years untill car starts getting checked at mot time
Hmmm. Let's think about this from the manufacturer/dealer perspective. If the car fails during the warranty period, it costs them money. If the car fails outside the warranty period, they make money. So, being cynical, they can maximise their revenue by designing the service schedule in such a way that cars begin to fail & become unreliable once the warranty period has ended. This has the additional advantage of encouraging folks to trade their cars in once they are outside warranty, so the manufacturers get to sell more new cars, the dealers get to sell more used ones, and the service departments are kept busy repairing all the older vehicles.
If the service schedule were designed to maximise the life expectancy of the car, it would seriously disrupt this gravy train. Manufacturers design service schedules to get the majority of the cars through warranty without frightening prospective new purchasers with servicing costs; this isn't the same as designing a 'best practice' schedule to minimise the total cost of ownership over the life of the car.
Changing the oil at 9k instead of 18k may mean the difference between the engine lasting for 150k instead of 100k - irrelevant perhaps for folks trading in after 3 years, but if the first purchaser takes the 'cheap option' it could result in serious heartache for someone in the car's later life who's struggled to scratch together the purchase price of a 95k car.
Just another way of looking at the servicing question.
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It would be interesting to see the facts rather than speculation. Oil is now so much better than it was 10 years ago, in fact to the point you could probably leave it even longer compared to older oil compositions. If it is sat idle then moisture can be a issue hence the 6k or below oil change.
As for the safety aspects, most risk will be based on mileage not time, if your looking at failures. So essentially you are no worse off with a 2 year service as a low mileage driver. If you say you need a 12 month service, then really for higher mileage drivers to match that safety aspect would mean a 6 or 9 month interval. So in reality you are no worse off with a 2 year mileage based service compared to a 12 month one as a result of the mileage being reached quicker.
However I don't disagree in having early safety checks, but I disagree that you are worse off with a 2 year service compared to a 12 month higher mileage one.
An example would be a failed tyre wall, the tyre may last another 4k miles. My mother has done 4,300 miles in 3 years. So the 2 year service was done at 2,800 miles, before failure would occur. A driver doing 18k a year will have a failure in less than 3 months, long before a service is due, unless you are lucky enough to have the sidewall issue within 2 months of the service.
So I am sorry, the arguments don't hold up that a 2 year service is more of a risk.
EDIT: In most industrial engine applications, servicing and failure calculations are based on engine hours, not time between services
As for the safety aspects, most risk will be based on mileage not time, if your looking at failures. So essentially you are no worse off with a 2 year service as a low mileage driver. If you say you need a 12 month service, then really for higher mileage drivers to match that safety aspect would mean a 6 or 9 month interval. So in reality you are no worse off with a 2 year mileage based service compared to a 12 month one as a result of the mileage being reached quicker.
However I don't disagree in having early safety checks, but I disagree that you are worse off with a 2 year service compared to a 12 month higher mileage one.
An example would be a failed tyre wall, the tyre may last another 4k miles. My mother has done 4,300 miles in 3 years. So the 2 year service was done at 2,800 miles, before failure would occur. A driver doing 18k a year will have a failure in less than 3 months, long before a service is due, unless you are lucky enough to have the sidewall issue within 2 months of the service.
So I am sorry, the arguments don't hold up that a 2 year service is more of a risk.
EDIT: In most industrial engine applications, servicing and failure calculations are based on engine hours, not time between services
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Many of the advances have been directed at maintaining oil performance with lower viscosity formulations - this has important benefits in terms of economy but if you look closely at the specs, the latest oils have similar wear resistance to their predecessors. Also, no matter how good the oil is, the level of contamination still builds up relentlessly with mileage in service. Changing the oil twice as frequently means that the oil is, on average, four times less contaminated.
Closely inspecting what comes out after even 8,000 miles in service leaves me in no doubt whatsoever of the benefits of more frequent changes.
Another factor which hasn't yet been given much attention is the latest trend toward adding ethanol to petrol. There is good reason to suppose this will exacerbate the internal corrosion problem and if any of this ethanol ends up in the oil its anticorrosion performance will be seriously compromised.
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But that has no relevance on 2 year interval as opposed to 12 months. It's mileage based so somebody who has a 18k service which is accepted, would need one almost every 5.5 months.
But the thing you are not able to quantify is whether this will cause engine failure premature to the service life of the rest of the car, I can only guess but I would say it is marginal.
But the thing you are not able to quantify is whether this will cause engine failure premature to the service life of the rest of the car, I can only guess but I would say it is marginal.
Yes. We will have to agree to disagree. However, I should clarify, having checked with 2 Fiat dealership service department's, including my supplying dealer, there are no checks involved in the oil service. It is purely an oil and filter change.
I will continue to check my car on a weekly basis, as I have always done, and change the oil and filter, at least annually. I will certainly not be paying franchised rates for an oil change.
Anyway, no point in having a disagreement about it. We can all make our own decision regarding the matter. Just think it is fair to have a balanced debate. No point in people spending their hard earned cash on a service that is not a stipulation of the engine manufacturer.
ahmett
Prominent member
But what if you drive in a way that you need to top up 3 liters of oil anyway after 18k inbetween services = ), so in effect you get fresher oil with only a dodgy filter, but even so if you are busy burning the oil it wont be old and contaminated because it melts away early without staying in the car too long!
You could very well be right.
But I once had to spend just shy of £15k at 1988 prices to overhaul an aircraft engine which had been prematurely damaged by corrosion because the previous owner had left it sitting around unused over the winter without changing the oil so in consequence I am perhaps more cautious than many.
At around £30 for 3l of factory-spec oil & a genuine filter, I'd say it's cheap insurance. If I were paying a main dealer £100 for an oil change (why would anyone do that
), then I'd agree the benefits might not be worth the premium.I'd say that if you drive your car like that it's even more important to change the oil & filter more frequently to give your engine the best possible protection against premature wear.
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