What's this like for car servicing charge?

Associate
Joined
13 Jan 2007
Posts
2,424
Location
Belfast,Northern Ireland
Hi all,

as usual, I'm a moron when it comes to these things, happy with a car that goes from A to B and frankly I need to learn more maintenance skills but the usual excuse of time etc...

I'm curious if this is sensible enough for a service charge, the synthetic oil charge stands out to me as hefty and something I could potentially just sort myself...but would the oil keep considering we've only one car? Screenwash is a right joke but I'll let that one slide as I think I forgot to top up beforehand.

Basically just looking to eliminate stupid wasting of money if I can sort it myself easily enough and in general if the base service price seems okay. The vehicle is a Hyundai i20 2013 (1.2L)

service = 96
Filter air cleaner = 11.48
Brake fluid DOT4 = 2.23
Oil filter = 8.93
gasket-oil plug = 0.72
5W30 Fully synthetic oil = 34.99
Screenwash = 2.16
Total = 156.51

https://imgur.com/jatZwlB

jatZwlB.jpg
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
22 Nov 2006
Posts
23,299
Brake fluid looks really cheap.

Notice even when you brim your screenwash before taking it in, they still try to bill you for some.
 
Soldato
Joined
20 Oct 2010
Posts
4,168
That's more than reasonable, you'll be surprised how much oil is, look at Tesco and see how much they charge for a 5 litre fully synthetic oil, be about the same price.
 
Soldato
Joined
6 May 2004
Posts
5,991
Location
Fareham
Seems pretty good to me. Sure, you could do the oil and filter changes yourself and it would probably cost £40-50 in parts and an hour or so of your time, but then you no longer get service stamps and to be quite frank, for that money, it's not worth faffing around with. Perfectly reasonable.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
13 Oct 2006
Posts
90,805
Seems good to me - my brother just had one that was around £390 and a proper service on my pickup is way north of £300 :(
 
Permabanned
Joined
24 Jul 2016
Posts
7,412
Location
South West
Seems a decent price to me it doesn’t seem like they’ve put much off a mark up on parts.

Oil is about what you would pay if you brought it yourself although they make a massive markup on oil if they buy in bulk.

I was in a Halfords once and happened to glance at an invoice that was left on the counter, it said about £250 for a 240 litre drum, so about a pound a litre. Can’t imagine what they pay to fill a 1000 litre tank.
 
Soldato
Joined
13 Apr 2013
Posts
12,370
Location
La France
What’s their hourly rate for labour?

What else was inspected during the service?

The materials cost seems reasonable apart from the screenwash scam. Not really worth kicking off over £2 if their service is good otherwise.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
21 Feb 2006
Posts
29,297
BMW was £13 for screen wash I seem to recall.

"We won't use just water as if it freezes we are liable" they tried to argue...
 
Soldato
Joined
7 Nov 2004
Posts
15,686
Location
East of England
That's an incredibly decent price. £35 for 3.6 litres of fully synth Shell or Castrol oil like most manufacturers use is what you'd pretty much get it in the aftermarket from ECP for.

£2 for screenwash is fair enough and £2 for a brake fluid top up is bang on too.

You've got some really decent prices there, I wouldn't complain!
 
Associate
OP
Joined
13 Jan 2007
Posts
2,424
Location
Belfast,Northern Ireland
That is both cheap and sort of honest, did the car need the wash fluid and brake fluid toped up?

I forgot to get to the screenwash beforehand so happy to accept my own stupidity there, no idea about brake fluid as it isn't something I've done. Thank you all for the comments, didn't think it was too bad, I suspected oil might have been dodgy but glad to hear it's fair enough. Sounds like I've nothing to whinge about, just wanted a sanity check as I've no idea about such things.
 
Soldato
Joined
20 Oct 2008
Posts
12,096
Why do they top up brake fluid? The only reason the level should drop is because of wear on the brakes. If they keep topping it up you’ve then got to remove fluid when you replace the pads or it’ll overflow. As long as the fluid is above the minimum fill level they should leave it alone.
 
Back
Top Bottom