General Servicing

[Jodsclass]

Hi Everyone.

Quick query. I bought a 2017 Fiat 500s in March. Love the car & it currently has a full service history with stamps. Here is my dilemma. This is the most I’ve spent on a car. I used savings & bought it for cash, but in the current climate of car prices & availability, it was pricey. I'm coming from a 54 plate panda which I bought for £2k 9 years ago. With the panda, I did all of my own servicing as the value of the car was low. Even though I did my own servicing, I kept all receipts & when I sold it in June, I got £1600 for it, even with 100k miles on the clock (80k of which I did). So in 9 years I only lost £400.

With the 500 being much newer & more expensive, I'm not sure if I should pay for someone to service the car, which seems a rip-off, or continue doing it myself & forgo the service stamps, but keep the invoices as proof. I'll no doubt sell the car privately in the future, as I’ve never part exchanged.

What does everyone else do in this position? Should I continue doing my own 6-month oil changes & annual full servicing, or should I pay over the odds for those little stamps?

I’ve just paid for a cambelt, aux belt & water pump change at 36000 miles & 6 years, so it's good on that front, but the garage costs are now eye watering. Simple repairs & general servicing I can do in my sleep on the driveway.

I'd really appreciate your input & own preferences with your cars/age of cars.

 

[porta]

Once a cars out of warranty, and the declining cover that warranties give, I service and maintain as much as I can.
For some things, now getting out of my range, I use trusted independents.

 

[John202020]

Just do it yourself save your money and the oil can easily go a year between changes

 

[Jodsclass]

Thanks.

I tend to do the oil every 6 months or so because we do a lot of around town driving. Maybe 3 miles and then the car is left to fully cool & then another 3 miles every day. We do take it on runs up & down the country, but day to day it's a lot of tiny journeys.

I'm on the side of doing it myself. I once paid to have it done & the garage left the rest of a 5 litre oil can in the car for top-ups. It was such a cheap & nasty oil that I never went back. At least doing it myself & can spec decent quality oils & parts & know it's been done right.

 

[z rider]

Better do it yourself so you can be sure of the quality of the materials you use.

 

[The Panda Nut]

The value of a full service history is not in fact substantial. A few hundred at most, or the cost of a couple of services so financially it is of limited benefit. There is no guarantee a garage will spot or indeed miss any more or less than you will do yourself. Any non specialist garage is only as good as the mechanic they employed on the day. A fully recorded private service history is in my view as good especially if properly documented. I use a dealer on the new car under warranty but do what I can myself for all the reasons stated above. With small car values seemingly still rising you should still be on solid ground with this apporach. Spend your money on MES!

 

[Jodsclass]

The value of a full service history is not in fact substantial. A few hundred at most, or the cost of a couple of services so financially it is of limited benefit. There is no guarantee a garage will spot or indeed miss any more or less than you will do yourself. Any non specialist garage is only as good as the mechanic they employed on the day. A fully recorded private service history is in my view as good especially if properly documented. I use a dealer on the new car under warranty but do what I can myself for all the reasons stated above. With small car values seemingly still rising you should still be on solid ground with this apporach. Spend your money on MES!

Thanks for this. I definitely need a copy of MES and the relevant adaptors. I never needed a code reader on the panda, but I'm assuming even to reset the service indicator I'll need to use multiscan. I’ve been meaning to buy the kit for ages, so will be happy to do so. I also want to make some changes to the uConnect, so it will pay for itself in no time.

With doing my own servicing & keeping all receipts in a massive folder, it's always looked more impressive in a private sale than a few stamps in a book anyway. It’s a true history of every penny I’ve spent on the vehicle, which tends to be pre pretty meticulous. I was just really curious as to how members approach servicing & service stamps in general.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

The Fiats, and some other vehicles - the recently bought Mazda2 being a case in point - in our family are always older cars bought second hand and often with somewhat patchy service history. In the past I've done "everything" myself, but now, with advancing age becoming a limiting factor physically, I'm still doing all the servicing and lighter repair tasks but farm out heavier tasks to our local Fiat independent - Stuff like gearbox removal when a clutch needs doing.

Newer cars, like my SEAT Ibiza and my boy's Kia Rio, both bought new, go to the dealer for as long as their warranty is active so there can be no arguments if problems need to be rectified. This paid off big time when the Ibiza's turbo failed and had to be replaced. Once the warranty is up I then take over the service maintenance and most repairs.

In both cases I keep most of the receipts - sometimes a bit difficult as I often buy parts for more than one car at the same time which then all appears together on the one invoice. I also keep a detailed, dated, written record of all works done which takes the form of a small book which lives with the dealer service record for the car.

I think, if you are buying a car that's new or nearly new and keeping it for just a few years before selling it, then a stamped up dealer record of servicing is probably going to stand you in good stead when negotiating on it's replacement - or trying to sell it privately. People looking at older vehicles will soon learn that a complete dealer history is far from the norm so if you have a written record of all work done, especially accompanied by receipts for materials and can reassure the buyer that you're a competent person, Then you can't do much more.

 

[John202020]

We have to keep our cars going on a shoestring I use ECP cheap qx oil and change once a year it stays nice and clean even though our cars heading to 14 years old and 100k and all urban cycle mind the oil in our Mazda gets quite dirty 120k 16 years old but uses quite a bit oil-doesn't burn it suspect pcv valve

 

[Jodsclass]

Thank you for all the replies, really appreciated & confirms what I was already thinking with regards self-service vs garage service.

One thing I'm quite annoyed about is that there isn't a Haynes model for the newer 500s. I've got the panda/500 manual I had for the panda, but that only covers upto 2012 model cars. I’ve never been without a relevant haynes manual for a car I’ve owned, so was surprised to find they haven't done one.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

One thing I'm quite annoyed about is that there isn't a Haynes model for the newer 500s. I've got the panda/500 manual I had for the panda, but that only covers upto 2012 model cars. I’ve never been without a relevant haynes manual for a car I’ve owned, so was surprised to find they haven't done one.

Me too. I've used Haynes manuals all my working life. In days gone by they covered absolutely all aspects of your car but then they started dropping stuff like internal gearbox repair - which I can understand because many modern gearboxes need specialized equipment and tools to work on. They've never been very good at electronics but even so there was a lot of stuff in them which was very useful - stuff like how to get a difficult door card off without wrecking all the fixings, how to find that "hidden" screw that's preventing you getting the air filter casing off the manifold and much more.

I lament the passing of their "hardcopy" books. I understand they have a lot of stuff online now but I've tried online manuals and just can't get on with them - There's nothing like a paper page book which you can flick back and forwards through as you work.

 

[Jodsclass]

Agreed. I'd also rather not have the laptop on the driveway. My Haynes collection are full of oily fingerprints for past jobs. Wouldn't want that all over the laptop. Thank goodness for forums like FF, the help on here is remarkable in an age of monetization for everything.

 

[John202020]

Your old one will do for most DIY jobs that require a spanner.

 

[Jodsclass]

Your old one will do for most DIY jobs that require a spanner.

Yeah, I think you are right. I've already used it for a couple of things, some things have moved, but on the whole it's still helpful.

 

[Ralf S.]

Service history is of questionable value (although that's not saying servicing is of questionable value) if your car has a 4-figure value and you keep it for a long time. A £9000 car with full service history would be worth maybe £8,500 without... but over 5 years you would have spent £2000 in servicing costs, to get that extra monkey when when you sell it.

You can also do a better job servicing your own car. My oil changes tend to take me half a day, not least because I like tea... but because I can take the time to wipe any oil out of the airbox, fix any loose hoses, apply the odd cable tie, replace any rusty looking fasteners and so on. You can also choose the oil and products you fit.. so my beast gets a factory or maybe a Bosch oil filter and then a spot of Fuchs or Motul oil, rather than "big blue bucket" 5W40 that the garage might have. I think my services are better than any garage.... but I'm maybe biased.

My 500X (brand new/warranty/service plan) got quite a superficial first service by the looks of it. Even the oil used seems to be not the Fiat recommended one.. .it's an unusual 0W20 spec. I bought some genooine for top ups.. and it, and the original oil was a lot different to what's on the dipstick... so it's clear that garages don't care all that much.

The only doubt someone might have is that you are not a mechanic, so how do they know for sure your car hasn't been bodged? I've had banger range motors for years and some of what I see is quite amusing/disappointing.. but I've also had cars come back from the garages with the same levels of bodgery evident, so I'm not sure you're ever guaranteed anything has been done right, unless you do it yourself.


Ralf S.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

Service history is of questionable value (although that's not saying servicing is of questionable value) if your car has a 4-figure value and you keep it for a long time. A £9000 car with full service history would be worth maybe £8,500 without... but over 5 years you would have spent £2000 in servicing costs, to get that extra monkey when when you sell it.

You can also do a better job servicing your own car. My oil changes tend to take me half a day, not least because I like tea... but because I can take the time to wipe any oil out of the airbox, fix any loose hoses, apply the odd cable tie, replace any rusty looking fasteners and so on. You can also choose the oil and products you fit.. so my beast gets a factory or maybe a Bosch oil filter and then a spot of Fuchs or Motul oil, rather than "big blue bucket" 5W40 that the garage might have. I think my services are better than any garage.... but I'm maybe biased.

My 500X (brand new/warranty/service plan) got quite a superficial first service by the looks of it. Even the oil used seems to be not the Fiat recommended one.. .it's an unusual 0W20 spec. I bought some genooine for top ups.. and it, and the original oil was a lot different to what's on the dipstick... so it's clear that garages don't care all that much.

The only doubt someone might have is that you are not a mechanic, so how do they know for sure your car hasn't been bodged? I've had banger range motors for years and some of what I see is quite amusing/disappointing.. but I've also had cars come back from the garages with the same levels of bodgery evident, so I'm not sure you're ever guaranteed anything has been done right, unless you do it yourself.


Ralf S.

There is a train of thought which goes that you should never buy a car which has been owned by a mechanic because he/she isn't going to sell it until something really nasty/expensive is wrong with it?

Oils used in garages is a "funny" one. Long gone I think, and hope, are the days when there were a couple of big 50 gallon barrels feeding out through metered dispensers which had "thick" and "thin" oil in them. The factors tell me they sell most of the oil in 5 litre containers now and the local garages tend to buy it in for specific jobs at the same time as they are buying the parts - filters, etc - I do wonder a little bit though that, as most cars don't take the full 5 litres to fill, there must be a lot of part used containers by the end of the week and it must be a great temptation to use some of this up when maybe an older vehicle is being worked on?

As Ralf says, when you're doing it yourself you know exactly what's going into it and keep the receipts as proof. You've also got the time, because your time is costing nowt, to sort out any number of little things you may happen to notice and which may save grief later - for instance a hose which is gently rubbing itself through against the battery box - as one of mine was.

 

[Lingottoroof]

Yes much like Ralf I do all my own servicing as you have the time to sort all the little improvements as mentioned which would never get done in a garage these days sadly.

Good point too on any cost benefit when selling though it's a moot point with me as a) I'm not selling either of our Fiats and b) they ain't worth a lot anyway

As an interesting aside we had a relatively new 500X until we replaced it with the 500L. It had full history from a large main dealer with recent front pads listed. Brakes weren't great and on investigation one of the front discs was very thin on one side where the caliper had seized. Yet they just fitted new pads on a dodgy disc and didn't free the caliper...

A lot of today's 'mechanics' are just part fitters and haven't benefitted from proper apprenticeships or training like I was fortunate to have all those years ago

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

A lot of today's 'mechanics' are just part fitters and haven't benefitted from proper apprenticeships or training like I was fortunate to have all those years ago

I've heard this so often from folk I know in the trade. The pool of folk with decent skills must now be quite small and what about all the folk we need to train up to deal with electric cars? Nor many of them about. I know two of the garages I know well have told me that they aren't even going to try. They're old, like me, and are just going to shut the doors when the supply of conventional cars needing repair dries up.

 

[Lingottoroof]

I've heard this so often from folk I know in the trade. The pool of folk with decent skills must now be quite small and what about all the folk we need to train up to deal with electric cars? Nor many of them about. I know two of the garages I know well have told me that they aren't even going to try. They're old, like me, and are just going to shut the doors when the supply of conventional cars needing repair dries up.

It's really quite sad as I'm sure a lot of young people would benefit from a vocational qualification rather than the usual generic degree they have these days.

I have read that there is a drive at Bicester to train youngsters on classic car mechanics that is really popular so it's not all bad news.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

It's really quite sad as I'm sure a lot of young people would benefit from a vocational qualification rather than the usual generic degree they have these days.

I have read that there is a drive at Bicester to train youngsters on classic car mechanics that is really popular so it's not all bad news.

I was involved for many years in vocational trade training, better not get me started on my opinion on universities, but there are many lads and lasses who have little academic inclination but would do very well in vocational training. They keep on talking about apprenticeships but what actually becomes available isn't a patch on what I would understand to be a trade apprenticeship. Soon there'll be no older skilled men to pass the hand skills on and I think that will be desperately sad.