General How about a servicing sticky?

[Puppy]

I have a 1.9jtd stilo and the first 2 services were "free" ie the 12k and the 24k. I received a request for me to attend the 36k service, after enquiring the cost of it, I told them to stuff it. £275.00 from Fiat direct is way too much to pay for a simple service due to the fact that most of the "essential maintenance" in purely observational! Instead, DIY, any pillock could do it, save yourself heaps! £20 for premium oil from Halfrauds, an oil filter for £7+vat, fuel filter £6+vat, your brake pads should be fine around the 36k mark, (unless you think your micheal schuemacher and live on your brakes) Read your service shedule, see what you can do yourself and only the poopy jobs like, timing belt changes, get a local garage to do. Bu**er the warranty as it is not worth sh*t with Fiat, believe me! They have excuses and reasons for all their warranty claims in order to dismiss them. Oh and a word of advice, if you do decide to put you car anywhere for a service, whatever mileage it is, check the service schedule and note the parts that will be chnged, ie fuel filter, oil filter etc and ask to see them once after the service, or better still, mark them obviously to check to see if they have actually changed then and not pretend they have, but still charge you for the idea. If you think I am over reacting....trust me, I will not be purchasing any car from the Fiat dealers up here in Aberdeen again, that is for sure.

 

[Koa]

It sounds like you have had a few problems with dealers Puppy

Why is it that some dealers have to put this sort of untrust into peoples minds, I can't believe how low they are willing to go to save a few bob

Welcome to the forum btw mate

 

[Puppy]

hi KoArAng, thanks. yeah dealers are fraudsters and it really annoys me how keen the are to sell the car to you, take your hard earned cash and forget about you with lack of aftersales care. It is a shame as the car I got from then is fabulous!, it is the only car that I have wanted to hold onto the longest. The teething probs should normally be corrected under warranty, but I am tired of fighting for things I'd be so much faster and cheaper doing myself. Hell, Citroen's aftersales service was better! They're cars are not that great.

 

[Stilo_ste]

Agreed, but watch residual value without service history. But your writing is just as good as any garages - trust me.....

 

[StiloBoy]

I was told my front pads were 60% worn, which i was surprised about as i very rarely stamp on my breaks, a very smoth driver in general.... although rear pads 20% worn! Granted i know rears wear slower, but i'd have thought maybe 50% slower wear so worn to 30%

 

[T14086]

Bu**er the warranty as it is not worth sh*t with Fiat, believe me! They have excuses and reasons for all their warranty claims in order to dismiss them.

Actually Fiat are very good with warranty claims (I deal with them everyday) & personally I think alot of customers are lucky considering alot of them cant even be bothered to get a simple service once a year! Only last month a warranty claim was accepted even with no history (car was 2 years old) worth over £150 & previous to that £4000 worth of work for reason other than Fiat being generous...I would of told them to f**k off.
Try phoning Ford customer services then maybe you will realise how good Fiat are.BTW all warranty limitations & clauses all openly available,read the litreature that came with your car!

Non Fiat garages will soon have access to all Fiat info but will have to pay for it like anyone else.

 

[Koa]

My experience with ford customer service was always top notch so I think it comes down to the same old problem, not all dealers are doing it right.

 

[T14086]

My experience with ford customer service was always top notch so I think it comes down to the same old problem, not all dealers are doing it right.

Oh yeah of course it depends who you get & when you contacted them (was this recently koarang) but in my experience I found them very dissapointing...and I was working for them at the time!

 

[Bob in disguise]

i'm about 500 miles off my 4th service now

Have to ring around cause fiat in Reading are slightly over priced
Anyone know of any decent fiat garages west of london?

 

[Koa]

Oh yeah of course it depends who you get & when you contacted them (was this recently koarang) but in my experience I found them very dissapointing...and I was working for them at the time!

It was about 2 years ago now, English ford in Poole. The courteousy car was discovered to be too small for all my kids so the manager let us use his galaxy for a couple of days, that's just one good example

 

[T14086]

It was about 2 years ago now, English ford in Poole. The courteousy car was discovered to be too small for all my kids so the manager let us use his galaxy for a couple of days, that's just one good example

Sorry I was talking about customer services...the ones you phone up not the actual garage itself.

 

[Koa]

Sorry I was talking about customer services...the ones you phone up not the actual garage itself.

ah right, that explains it then

 

[stilo boy]

Just had my 36,000 mile service

£250 All in service.
Ended up costing me £320 with 2 new front brake pads - i was quite lucky though as they had to reflash the ECU 'cos it was reporting some 'false' error about a engine fault & thed did it for free.

It's a joke though £70 standard charge for rebooting a computer !!.

I also needed 2 new tyres so total Stilo maintanance bill this month is £430:

 

[Koa]

Booked my car in today, at my local garage that do all my car mods I didn't realise they did servicing too soo i'm well chuffed cuz they take a lot of care with my car and I know they will do the job right.

It's costing £75+ VAT, I said I'd provide the oil because I have a couple of litres here, so I only need a bit more.

 

[Sid]

If you capable of servicing your own car, know someone or garage you trust to do it then might as well once its out of warranty and save a fortune, Dealers not interested once they've sold you car in general and do bare minimum they can get away with under warranty and normally end up coming away from dealership feeling well and truly pi**ed off, usully have to have a row with them to get anything done.
Pity.. Stilo's are good cars with a few minor niggles...creaking suspension and dodgy warning messages to name a few but what lets them down most is '****e' dealers who make every thing into a crisis, All the dealers i've been to are equaly as bad....Fiat should dump them.
As for having a book full of over priced service stamps to keep trade in value up seems like a waste of money to me cos they loose a fortune anyway!

 

[T14086]

It's a joke though £70 standard charge for rebooting a computer !!.

Bit excessive I admit but first the dealer has to buy the computer (around £3000) then buy all the attatchments/air bag simulators etc (another£2000,2 probes for accessing connectors cost £70! then you need the attatchments for these) then pay hundreds a month (I think it's around £300) for updates/online information...not going to 'claw' that outlay back and start making a proffit if you only charge a fiver are you.
Then Fiat bring out the examiner smart so you go through whole expensive process again & there were rumours of a new examiner in the pipeine...luckily though this seems to be postponed for the meantime.
I understand that people moan at the charge but it's same as any business...£40 for plumber to get in his van & knock on your door!

It's to a dealers advantage to do warranty work as it's a steady income,ok dealers only get paid what Fiat say but it's a income.To say dealers are not interested in warranty work is untrue.

 

[Sid]

None of dealers i've been to been interested in doing warranty work on problems that weren't staring them in the face, Just 'NFF' put next to most items on my list and they don't listen to what you tell them.
Four attemts to fix inoperative courtesy light, three to fix boot light, two trips to fit an alternator it didn't need, can't hear wipers that banged so loudly at top of screen sounded like gun being fired! deaf to wind noise, rattle in door, rattling instruments!!!!!!! I could go on.
Fortunately its out of wrranty now a I can fix it myself and two dealers have lost my servicing trade

 

[stilo boy]

Bit excessive I admit but first the dealer has to buy the computer (around £3000) then buy all the attatchments/air bag simulators etc (another£2000,2 probes for accessing connectors cost £70! then you need the attatchments for these) then pay hundreds a month (I think it's around £300) for updates/online information...not going to 'claw' that outlay back and start making a proffit if you only charge a fiver are you.

But when there's nothing actually wrong & the computers just generating a error !!! £60 is way to steep for 30 secs work + there's no guarentee it won't do it again. It's not just a Fiat problem though 60% of car dealers do the same !!

 

[stilo boy]

My dealer wasn't interested in Warrenty work either - had numerous trips with problems with boot / air con/ wipers / lights etc..

THe problems never got fixed - " we can't find a fault....just see how you go and any problems just bring it back in ".

Then after Warrenty has expired they wan't £80 just to re-gas the air con. When i asked them why they didn't re-ags the air con during warrenty they said it wasn't neccesary then !!!

 

[timr69]

Is the aircon regas covered by warranty?
I noticed on the hot days this summer (both of them ) that it struggled to cope with the heat.