Car back from service

big_white_dog84 · 27 Mar 2006 at 16:00

burns said:
I services my cars myself though, if I got all the work on my cars done by garages I would be a few grand down on my costs so far.

I think at the start of the car's life getting it done by a gragae is probably justifiable to maintain the FSH. Once a service costs more than the amount by which the car's value would drop by losing the FSH it isn't worth it.

pdw8 · 27 Mar 2006 at 16:18

big_white_dog84 said:
I think at the start of the car's life getting it done by a gragae is probably justifiable to maintain the FSH. Once a service costs more than the amount by which the car's value would drop by losing the FSH it isn't worth it.

I agree, but under the terms of the extended warranty I have to use Audi approved garages which seem to be 95% main dealers.

burns · 27 Mar 2006 at 16:43

pdw8 said:
I agree, but under the terms of the extended warranty I have to use Audi approved garages which seem to be 95% main dealers.

Ah. I think in order to keep a warranty intact it's worth using main dealers. It depends on how long your keeping the car for as well I guess. If you keeping it for 10 years or something then there's no point in keeping the resale value high as it will be worth very little when you sell it.

tb2000 · 27 Mar 2006 at 19:15

pdw8 said:
I agree, but under the terms of the extended warranty I have to use Audi approved garages which seem to be 95% main dealers.

As I understand it, this is somewhat of a myth quoted by most dealers to make the public take their car back to them or the "approved garages". As long as you take you car to a reputable garage who does the job properly and you've got a stamp in your book from them (rather than just letting some joe down the street have a go who's doing it on the side out of his home garage), then thay must honour the warranty whether they like it or not.

tb2000 · 27 Mar 2006 at 19:17

Double post sorry

Mickey_D · 27 Mar 2006 at 19:19

Heh, all this talk of cambelts and cam chains, boy am I glad my old truck has gears!! 230,000 miles and the timing cover has never been off of it!!

Mind you, my old Toyota truck had 705,000 miles on the original timing chain, too.......

tb2000 · 27 Mar 2006 at 19:21

Mickey_D said:
Heh, all this talk of cambelts and cam chains, boy am I glad my old truck has gears!! 230,000 miles and the timing cover has never been off of it!!

Mind you, my old Toyota truck had 705,000 miles on the original timing chain, too.......

Indeed, Toyota trucks seem to be built to last. Have you seen the clip online from Top Gear where they tried to trash a Toyota truck and failed?

Mickey_D · 27 Mar 2006 at 19:32

Hahahaha, I can imagine!! I owned my truck for two years and never drove it without everyone around me calling the police to report it stolen!!

Then the guy I gave it to used it to haul gravel and firewood for work. He then gave it to his daughter to learn to drive in (poor clutch

), then he gave it to one of his workmates to use as a track car :eek:

As far as I know it's still on the road (5 years later) as the tabs (equivilant to your tax disc) are current for the year!!

Alibaba99 · 27 Mar 2006 at 19:41

tb2000 said:
As I understand it, this is somewhat of a myth quoted by most dealers to make the public take their car back to them or the "approved garages". As long as you take you car to a reputable garage who does the job properly and you've got a stamp in your book from them (rather than just letting some joe down the street have a go who's doing it on the side out of his home garage), then thay must honour the warranty whether they like it or not.

To maintain a warranty the work has to be carried out using genuine parts, but the work itself can be performed by an independent specialist.

Bradmax57 · 27 Mar 2006 at 19:49

tb2000 said:
Indeed, Toyota trucks seem to be built to last. Have you seen the clip online from Top Gear where they tried to trash a Toyota truck and failed?

yeah I even saw it at the nec motorshow, i was amazing they managed to drive that it was amazing

Joe T · 27 Mar 2006 at 19:53

Alibaba99 said:
To maintain a warranty the work has to be carried out using genuine parts, but the work itself can be performed by an independent specialist.

Correct.

Bradmax57 · 27 Mar 2006 at 20:00

Joe T said:
Correct.

I still maintain you would have a hard job getting that one

Bradmax57 · 27 Mar 2006 at 20:01

although extended warranty maybe different from manufacturers, all i know is main dealers have been a pita in my experience

geiger · 27 Mar 2006 at 20:10

There was a court case to prove as much, dealers cannot hold anyone to ransom like this and if they try to say otherwise then you can sue quite easily I think.
Of course they go beyond the warranty sometimes for goodwill and I doubt they would do that for someone who didnt use the dealer who kick back their franchise fees to them

Steve JL · 27 Mar 2006 at 23:25

Block Exemption kicked in October last year which basically allows anyone to sell/repair new cars providing they meet the minimum standards set by the franchise concerned.
Prior to this certain manufactures were quite happy to let you have your car serviced anywhere as long as parts of the same or better quality were used.
But that varied on the manufacturer...

Heres a link that explains it far better than I ever could

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3012/is_5_183/ai_101939304

With regard to extended warranty most of them are provided by an outside company "chosen" by the manufacturer or the dealer and they generally have a number of clauses built in,being serviced by a main dealer being one of them but not always.

tb2000 said:
Indeed, Toyota trucks seem to be built to last. Have you seen the clip online from Top Gear where they tried to trash a Toyota truck and failed?

Yeah its still going believe it or not even though we did manage to snap the chassis again when we did the New Hilux launch

.
I can assure you all that we didnt do anything special to it either and no parts were replaced during the filming.Although we did look it over beforehand and replaced a missing propshaft.

Steve

Bradmax57 · 28 Mar 2006 at 10:58

Steve JL said:
Yeah its still going believe it or not even though we did manage to snap the chassis again when we did the New Hilux launch .
I can assure you all that we didnt do anything special to it either and no parts were replaced during the filming.Although we did look it over beforehand and replaced a missing propshaft.

Steve

You were part of that? cool

Third Opinion · 28 Mar 2006 at 11:06

With regards to non-dealer service history.

I appreciate that specialists whip dealers both in quality and price most of the time but what does it do to the cars value?

My friend had his Merc repaired and serviced at a specialist and said it devalued the car when he came to sell it. Do you reckon that could be right? I only use specialists as the dealers have proven to be rubbish.