Mad !

Hi all.

Just looking at Verytall Brads post about being happy at £236 for an oil and filter change on a Lexus. As he points out, you can pay £200 at Citroen and I know of people paying over £100. STOP !!!! Can we have a sense of perspective here. This is probably a 15 minute job, tops at a properly appointed dealer. Filters, relatively are dirt cheap and lets be generous and say it's £50 worth of oil (which I doubt). Why do we stand for such blatant and ludicrous rip offs ? I have a very strong suspicion that if there were no company funding of vehicles allowed and servicing (and buying) of vehicles had to come out of individuals' pockets, we would see some severe falls in service charges. As it is, these dealers might well pander to your ego, with the 'free' valet and coffee etc. No -- it's not complimentary -- they are taking you to the cleaners for it.

Mike.

Hi Mike

I agree, it's a different world out there. My oil changes cost me about a tenner, £7.50 for the oil from Trago Mills and about £2.50 for the filter from GSF. I even got some sump plug washers off ebay for a fraction of the price that Citroen charge. I change it about three or four times a year, so that's £40.00 at the most. Where does all this money come from? I have never been able to afford to send my car into a garage, well only about twice and the hastle it caused made me vow never to do it again.

Peter.N.

I think I have run my XM for 3 years for what some people pay for servicing for a year.

I've spent about a grand on the 2.1 in the past 12 months, but to be honest thats the exception, as I knew it needed some long term work when I bought it. Some of it has been a fair few new parts it needed, diesel pump, alternator, spheres, timing belt, two sets of brakes, 8 tyres etc etc. I try and do what I can myself, and am Ok with most things, but time has become a very big constraint lately, so I've had no choice but to take them to other people sometimes.

Luckily I have a very reasonable indy near here, and occasionally I go down to Willie Johnson, who again is very reasonable and really knows XMs inside out, its well worth the long trip. I'd like to do more myself, but working and running a business I'm finding it increasingly difficult to get a chance these days. That, and my own tools and facilities at home are limited, though that's a situation I hope to change in time. That said though, I wouldn't dream of paying someone else to do something as basic as an oil / coolant / disc & pad change.

Like Ken, I too have ran my cars for a fraction of what people pay at these dealers. I've had friends scoff at my cars and the kinds of places I take them to, saying things like "Oh I'll take my car to a trained professional who knows what they're doing, thanks". I honestly don't know how they can afford the prices though, I really don't, and lets not even go into how half the mechanics seem to not have a clue, especially with obscure models. You could buy a fairly decent car with 12 months tax and MOT for the price some of these places charge for an average 'service', done by inexperienced monkeys in some cases.

I have a friend with a V5 Golf, who seemed quite happy recently to pay £300+ VAT (this was English rates though) for the replacement of a coolant temperature sensor. When I started having a coronary he said 'Oh, but they changed the oil and coolant while they were at it'. I said something like 'I'd like to think that they changed the oil, in fact I'd like to think that free oral sex was included, at that price!!'
Maybe its just laziness, I don't know, but FFS you would think that most people that know how to change a wheel, are capable of changing oil and coolant? No one is asking them to dive in there and change a clutch or a timing belt, undoing a bolt and placing a tray underneath isn't exactly rocket science is it?

Seriously though, I don't know how people pay so much for this kind of thing. I guess its possibly through not knowing, or being afraid to know about cars. Dealers and some garages must love this general fear, apathy and ignorance amongst car owners about what goes on under the bonnet, you can see how people get ripped off sometimes.


Ciarán

This post has been edited by Ciaran on November 17, 2007 02:05 am

Completely agree though arguably I would omit "oral". Just in case some of the people you refer to decide to take on an oil change as a result of reading your post could I suggest placing the tray first then undoing the bolt
Robert

Aha yes good spotting Derek, how did I get that one in the wrong order!
I guess this is why people take their cars to the trained professionals instead of listening to me!

Ciarán

Hi,

I agree that its a lot for an oil service. But, most importantly, it included a full check over of the car including tyre pressures including spare, tread depths, antifreeze condition, full valet (not just a damp rag) including vacuum and polished glass inside and out. Of great importance is the fact that the dealer ran me and my wife into town in anew Lexus chauffeur driven by a suited driver, collected us exactly when they said they would and returned us to the dealer where the car was waiting, shiny and dry. The service book was stamped, back in the glovebox and I lost minimal time from my business which is important. Today, we had the telephone call from Lexus to find out if we were happy with the service. Of course we were.

There was no waiting around, no delays and perfect courteous service all the way through. And my car felt new again, not just serviced. And thats what you pay for, not just the oil and a filter.

But point taken.

I can see why with modern cars people pay for servicing. Service history is important if you pay for a new car. I also am reluctant to touch a new car because I've heard of cars that wouldn't start after an oil change because the computer hadn't been reset afterwards.
On old cars though I don't see the point in paying. Garages don't seem to pay attention to detail on old, or cheap, cars. It was exactly that which caused me to start doing my own. Would never have had the confidence to start without the help of a competent friend though. A car and am engine are quite an overwhelming pair of things if you haven't played with them before and the fear of imobilising you're self is great

Hi

Very tall brad is right. It's not so much the actual service you pay for it's all the other infrastructure that goes around running a very well organised garage that you pay for (my Accord's Honda dealer for example). Running a business you see all the hidden costs all too well.

People go to garages with modern cars to maintain the service record and then the warranty too - there is almost fear from stepping away from the comfort blanket. I guess for most people they have the money - they take the easy option - take it to the garage, have a coffee and get a lift to and from the garage.

With older cars the story I completely agree it's different. My indy is great - always does just what is needed and I do other stuff myself. Definitely the cheapest way to run a car if you are prepared to go to a greasy garage and not have all the add-ons - plus they talk constantly about Chelsea FC. The other thing with my indy is that if some of the main dealers are full they get subcontracted for work! I bet the owners of the main dealer cars would love to know that.

Cheers

Tony

Hi Tony et al.

I too run a business and an important aspect of that, as always, is keeping your own costs down. To me therefore, paying well over the odds simply because the service provider chooses to bolt on a selection of items not pertinent to the reason for the visit is a nonsense. I would perhaps understand the system more if the bolt on bits were an option. Lets be clear --- this oil change issue -- and indeed the once over for levels, tyre pressures etc., could and should be a while you wait matter if the dealership were truly well organised and focused on the key tasks. The job should be done in less time than you spend being delivered and collected !
Fair dos if you like and don't mind stumping up for the extraneous bits, but in reality they should be shown as a separate tariff.
Also, unless you are looking to replace the vehicle whilst still almost new, the value of the dealers service record is less and less pertinent. Particularly if we are talking about larger, 'upmarket' cars, the depreciation in terms of actual value lost is phenomenal in the first three or four years and any modest variation brought by the service record is a drop in the ocean.

Mike.

That's a good point Brad, I'm sure its nice to have service and convenience like that, and with a brand such as Lexus, it was probably second to none.

The only issue I have with it, is it's fine if people actually want all that, but what if they simply want to maintain their car and have the service book stamped, and don't need (or want to pay for) all that extra. Maybe there should be a choice, reflected in the hourly rate.

Looking at it, when Lexus is charging £236 for all that, it makes you think just where do the likes of Citroen get off, charging £200 for just the oil change on it's own!!

Crazy.

/EDIT: Mike has already summed up most of what I wanted to say, but his post wasn't showing up when I started to write mine


This post has been edited by Ciaran on November 20, 2007 10:48 am

My father is on his third new car (having now retired, he drove used cars all his life prior to this).

I do all the servicing at home for him. He's NEVER had a service stamp in any of the service books and this has NEVER affected trade-in values. I've been with him during car purchases / trade-ins and can personally vouch for this.

I print out a sheet on my PC with mileage details and any replacement items.

Maybe fortunate that both my father and I are engineers, but If you are competant and willing to get your hands dirty there is absolutely no point in taking your car to a dealer for normal servicing. Unless you like seeing your harn-earned sailing away

After the 3rd owner, how many cars still have their service book anyway?

I agree with all of the above comments. What I pay for is perfect service, a properly cleaned car and no messing about. In and away in 2 hours is great for what they did. This is my 11th service at three different, unconnected Lexus dealers and they have never let me down. I shall buy Lexus until further notice purely for this service and the reliability of the cars.

I have always done all my own servicing and major repairs, partly because I couldn't afford to do otherwise and partly because you cant trust a garage to do the job properly (Lexus excluded it would seem) It really all boils down to how much you earn and time you have available. If you have a well paid job its obviously not cost effective to use working time to service your car.

For the first time in my life I could now afford to pay for servicing or even buy a new car, but I dont choose to. If I bought anything newer than the XM I wouldn't be able to repair it without access to the necessary software and would see more money than I usually pay for a car, thrown away in depreciation every year. So until I am incapable of repairing them or I can't get spares anymore, I will continue running an XM. Nobody makes a car that's better than the 2.1 td estate!

Peter.N.

Hi All

I have watched this item with great interest. I am pleased Brad has joined us as he has put a new view with a different personal approach and expectations from his motoring and cars. We are all reliant to some extent on the Citroen dealer network even if it is only for the spares we cannot source elsewhere. Whilst I readily criticise dealer performance their costs have to be retreived from their actual business. I am aware of at least two Citroen dealers that have gone to the wall in the last few years so they are not all making a fortune at our expense. Without new car buyers there would be no bargin cars for those of us who want to run things on a shoestring. Without owners who pay full whack for servicing and repairs there would be no dealer network to source the specialised spares we occasionally need. I can put a perspective on typical XM running costs from the various service records that came with my cars. Once out of the first 3 years the average XM owner paid about £1500 per year in parts and labour to his dealer to keep the car on the road. I suspect that most of us are trying to kid ourselves that we can get away with £250 a year to keep a well worn XM going.

Regards

XMexc