Self services?

JamesM

JamesM

JamesM

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
7,639
Location
Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham
I read a thread on another forum, saying that they had gone to view a car and having been told its last service was in 2003, they simply walked away without a test drive. Now apart from this being common sense, it got me thinking about what if people service their car themselves?

I've got a Fiesta ST and its had 3 services in the last 3 years. Now i'm no gods gift when it comes to working on cars but I can quite easily change the oil, air filter, spark plugs, etc.. plus in all fairness I enjoy working on the car.

However by doing this, obviously I won't have the stamps in the book, meaning any buyer will asume it has no service history which will no doubt effect re-sale value. I could always keep the receipts to prove i've bought the items but still, its not an 'official' service.

How do you get around this? Do people here accept that sometimes the car will be serviced by the owner rather than them have a garage do it? Would you be happy with this or would you only buy a car that has a full garage service history?
 
I do all the work on my MX5 myself, and some things on my Accord myself, and I have a spreadsheet stating what I did/had done, when, and the price, which I'll print out for any future buyers. When buying I'll make sure it's been serviced recently, and there's at least a reasonable service history
 
Well my car will come with no service history what so ever, guy I bought it from lost the book.

its 10 yeards old now, by the time i come to sell it, will be worth peanuts. Hence why I am not bothering getting it serviced. Was serviced last 2 years ago and no problems still.

On the other hand, if I was spending £5k+ on a car I would be looking at a service history, be it independant or manufactures garage.
 
Bought my car in 2006 with no service history. It was 7 years old. Ive serviced it myself since, and have had no major problems with it. By the time I get rid of it, it will have very little resale value anyway, so Im not too fussed.
 
Depends on the cost of the car.

I would be happy for minor servicing (oil/air filter/brake pads) to be done by the owner, but would prefer major things, cambelt/clutch replacement etc to have been done by a garage/specialist.

In my situation im not too bothered if the car has had an oil change and new brake pads and front tyres back in 2001, that was 8 years ago and doesnt really bare any significance to the car now.

Obviously look at the reciepts and see if its cheap oil/tyres or reasonable stuff as it will give some idea of the type of owner it had back then, but dont place too much emphasis on it. Condition is the main thing when buying a car.

I bought a "hot hatch" so I expect it to have been spanked everywhere.

I have kept all my reciepts and have written on the milage at which items have been fitted and the date.
 
I keep all the recpts for oil, brake fluid, filters, spark plugs, leads etc. This demonstrates the services have been carried out regulary. However, it doesn't make all that difference on the age of cars I buy - it doesn't increase the resale value but it does seem to make a sale easier and I've had no problems selling on any cars and getting the going rate for them.
 
Depends who you are & how strong your knowledge is considering motors & buying them.
I know a few mechanics that you guys would Beg to service your motor & if you knew what I knew about the local main dealer mechanics you'd Never rely on them again.

Having said that Obviously if you know nowt about cars apart from what you have read & buy new/nearly new cars you'd be a Fool to buy a car Without Full service history.

Depends what you are buying & who you are really.

Different strokes & all that.
 
Ok so say the cars value was pretty decent, £8,000 or higher. The reason i'm asking is becuase i'm quite happy doing things myself (excluding the major items like cambelts, etc) but didn't want the value of the car to drop a lot purely becuase i've done the minor services myself.
 
JamesM said:
Ok so say the cars value was pretty decent, £8,000 or higher. The reason i'm asking is becuase i'm quite happy doing things myself (excluding the major items like cambelts, etc) but didn't want the value of the car to drop a lot purely becuase i've done the minor services myself.
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Well how long do you plan on keeping it and how many miles do you estimate you will do in it?

If your going to do 200k in the car, then service it yourself, its going to be worth little at the end of it anyway.
 
I too can quite happily do a service on a car - heck, it's what I trained to do and I got my BTEC National in.
However all of my previous 3 cars have all had at least some of the original manufacturers warranty on and so to fully preserve those I do tend to take the vehicle back for "official stamps in the book".

My Renault & Peugeot both sold with full manufacturers history and just today I had the second stamp added to my Skoda book.

Sure I could save money on the service, however I supplied the majority of the parts (so shopped around and got good pricing) and they simply charged me for an hour or so labour and put a stamp in the book for me.
 
certain cars need stamps because the sort of know-nothing-numpty buying it will have no idea about its condition or whether its actually worth having, so stamps on book are all these people have to go by.

if i sold my golf there is a two inch thick wedge of receipts showing what has been done and when. imo id gasp at the thought of a car only being "serviced" three times in three years because things need attention regularly. mine gets worked on as and when, so i know everything is tip top. my total car-prep for le mans this weekend was get some spare oil cos it drinks a bit. so it can do a 1000 mile weekend no problem, most people would consider a 15 year old 200k+ "hot hatch" (that has been spanked everywhere) because it should be unreliable.

1000 miles a weekend is nothing for my car, its done that sort of thing loads of times
 
Berger said:
Depends on the cost of the car.

I would be happy for minor servicing (oil/air filter/brake pads) to be done by the owner, but would prefer major things, cambelt/clutch replacement etc to have been done by a garage/specialist.
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If you'd actually seen some of these people at work you'd change your mind PDQ. I'm sure there are are some excellent and caring specialists, but the time constraints placed on the people that work in dealers and general indy's mean your car has to be in and out as quickly as possible, rather than with the best job possible.
 
Sign the book yourself if you do the service yourself, simple!

For the warranty period you have little choice unless you have you own stamp, after that as long as you know what you are doing then get on and do it and sign it.
 
I sevice my cars and the gf's, I make sure I keep the reciepts for the parts and write it in a log. Though to be fair I don't think many people look for service history on a 35 yr old Opel or a 12 yr old rover :D
 
Dogbreath said:
If you'd actually seen some of these people at work you'd change your mind PDQ. I'm sure there are are some excellent and caring specialists, but the time constraints placed on the people that work in dealers and general indy's mean your car has to be in and out as quickly as possible, rather than with the best job possible.
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I know exactly how they work and the tricks they will pull!

However, for resale value, would you rather;

a) Have a printed invoice for work done from a main dealer.
b) Hand written invoice from a specialist
c) Receipts from Unipart et al for cambelt and the blokes word for when it was done.
d) No receipts, just "done in last 10k mate"

If I was buying I would rather it was B or A.

When it comes to do my cambelt ill either do it myself with genuine parts from the dealer, or get a specialist to do it whose trusted in the 306 community so to speak. Neither will really make much difference to the resale value of the car as its fairly low, but if you dont have any guarantee of the work being done then you would have to expect to be haggled £250 off to account for it straight away.
 
Berger said:
I know exactly how they work and the tricks they will pull!

However, for resale value, would you rather;

a) Have a printed invoice for work done from a main dealer.
b) Hand written invoice from a specialist
c) Receipts from Unipart et al for cambelt and the blokes word for when it was done.
d) No receipts, just "done in last 10k mate"

If I was buying I would rather it was B or A.
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It would depend on, a) how much I'm spending, and b) my impression of the guy selling the car.

If you were spending serious money on a supercar, you'd want every t crossed and i dotted. If it was more of an enthusiasts car, then I may be just as happy with a knowledgeable owner doing the work. If it was a cheap banger I'd take what I could get.
 
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