£150 for an oil change RANT !

[F Body]

Yes I paid £148.83 for basically an oil change today
Managements Panda was due it's 12,000 miles service and to keep the 3 year warranty it has to be done by a Fiat dealer.
So Management dropped it off at 09:30am as arranged and asked how long it would be ?



We'll need it at least four hours, well Management said it say's the 12,000 mile service only takes on hour !
The Service Manager said " We are very busy,but I'll try to get it done before 12 o clock ( very big of him ).
After walking round Hemel Hempstead for a few hours, she returned to the garage at 12:00pm and asked if it was ready and it wasn't done until 13:00pm
The service consists of about 20 check points, such as fluid levels, brake pads,tyres and oil and filter change.

So lets work out the cost, £11.04p for the filter and £37.67 for the semi-synthetic oil, that leaves £100.12p for the labour which must have took about 15 mins in total

The drain plug hasn't been touched so they sucked the oil out via the dipstick which explains why the new oil is already going black

So step forward Anthony Betts of Hemel Hempstead I wouldn't let you service my toaster  

[CJ-IROCZ]

That is shocking and amazing tht they get away with it

robbing bastards

[HardRockCamaro]

That is indeed pricey when you know what's involved.
Looks like they charged you £100 for an hours labour (or what they claim was an hour).  I can hardly believe it but it seems like £100 an hour is all too common nowadays.  I head some West London BMW dealers charge £150 an hour!  And no offence, but a BMW mechaniuc is the same as a Fiat mechanic who is the same as a Hyundai mechanic.  It's nuts, bolts and screws after all.

Labour charges for anything (be it a plumber or a mechanic) are way out of whack nowadays.

* I'm not keen on the suction method of oil removal really but it seems to be getitng more common nowadays.

[Motorama]

Its a myth that a car has to be serviced at a main dealer!

In most cases any VAT registered garage can service the car as long as they use genuine manufacturer parts without voiding the warranty.

[ianjpage]

bloody rip off!!

[Shifty]

Quoting: F Body

£11.04p

For an oil filter, where from? Harrods?

Mine from memory is around £6 and that's from the Toyota dealer in MK.

Garages are a total joke these days and most of the staff are plebs.

Not to tread on anyone's toes but when I had my pug I went to the dealer a couple of times to get parts for it.
Whilst waiting for the gimp to get my bits out of the store I looked through the window into the work shop and was horrified at what I saw.
Some kid probably no older than 17 (probably with no training what so ever) was trying to remove a front hub of a 306.
Seemingly he hadn't don't the spring compressor up properly and when he removed the spring it pinged out of the clamp and fired across the workshop hitting the roof and narrowly missing a customers car, nearly took his head of to.

And they from memory were charging £65 an hour for this (approximately 4 years ago).
The Toyota garage wants £90 for an hour of their highly skilled (Gimp) staffs time.

This is who no one touches my car apart from me and a friend who runs a garage down the road.

[Shifty]

Just as a side note not until you get to the £250 ish B service at the Toyota garage in MK do they change the oil, and apart from a couple of checks that's pretty much all they do.

You have to wait for the 58K mile C service to get the oil and SPK plugs changed and from memory that's around the £450 mark.

What a joke,

Rant over,

[HardRockCamaro]

When I worked at a Ford dealers for a summer doing the basic services and so on I can atest to the fact that we didn't do mot of the stuff on the checklist, only the important stuff (like tyres, brakes, lights) that are noticeable.
There just wasn't enough time to do the job properly.

[Fieldy]

I had A service done on my old, '93 BMW 318i.....Not A high priced car and A little shitter around the edges to be honest. Anyhow, I have A mechanic who has worked for my family for over 20 years and has now started his own business, so I use him......£320 including cam belt change etc. I thought that was alot, I then questioned it, he said, go ask BMW how much they would charge, then come back and tell me if you're still unhappy....


Off I trot to my nearest BMW dealership....I enquired using the excuse it's for future reference, they said, with the labour etc included, they would charge me £960

The car was only sold for £750!!!!

[EDGE]

it's just plain silly...

if bmw charge say £400 for a regular service and a local garage charge £100, over 5 years, thats £2000 or £500.... does a bmw service history add £1500 value to your car when you come to sell it... NO... especially when the car wasnt new anyways...

gemma always gets here corsa mot'd and services at the vauxhall main dealers, when we asked about a trade it last year (for an astra) the vauxhall service history added about £200 to the value... and you bet your ass shes spent WAY more than that having all the work done at the dealers as oposed to the local garage...

waste of time.. I have always serviced my own cars until lately when i would rather pay someone £25 to drain the oil and put my new provided oil in purely to save the hassle of getting dirty and then having to dispose of the old il someplace, like a stream or badgers den...

[Fieldy]

Quoting: EDGE

to save the hassle of getting dirty

Cracks me up everytime.....Only because I agree!!! I have never changed my own oil

[Motorama]

Quoting: EDGE

to save the hassle of getting dirty and then having to dispose of the old il someplace, like a stream or badgers den...

[EDGE]

like i said, i always did on all my cars and the truck.... but now, its more the disposing of the oil thats the pain, i mean, you've got to bottle it all up, find the last remaining example of some species of furry mammal and then follow it to its den/burrow then wait until it's asleep to pour the oil down there... I mean its fun.... but who has the time....

[Pod]

Surely you could chuck the old oil on the bbq?

[Roadkill]

Quoting: Pod

Surely you could chuck the old oil on the bbq?

It was designed to be a "Smoker" after all . . . .

[F Body]

Quoting: Fieldy

I have never changed my own oil

Because we plan to run the Panda until it dies, I change the oil at 1,000 miles and again at 6,000. It took a few minutes to figure out the weird oil filter holder and how to remove the pipework the first time.
Second time the whole operation took about 15 minutes, pitty I forgot to take the plug out of the drain can and all the oil ran down the drive

The only other garage service it will get is the two year 24,000 mile jobby, but at £265 it won't be at no bleeding Fiat garage

Quoting: Pod

Surely you could chuck the old oil on the bbq?

Now there's and idea, the MBK re-cycling BBQ

[Kenny]

Rachel's got a Hyundai Accent 52 reg, so being a hyundai it still has 7 months warranty before the 5yrs is up.  So,i decided to take it to the dealership to get the 50000 mile service done (i normaly do all my own, but a warranty 's a warranty)

here's what they charged at Autorama (Hyundai dealership in MK)

£283.09 now you might say 'hmmm thats not cheap', but heres the breakdown (rounded up):

Oil filter - £8
Sump washer - £0.65
Timing Belt - £37
Alternator Belt - £8
V Belt - £8
Screen Wash - £1
Engine Oil - £23
Labour - £195

for all that work, £283.09 seems pretty reaonable to me, especialy as they dont way overcharge on parts and only charge about £50/hr.....



that said, I am currently changing my own wheel bearing for £29 as appose to the £120 Autorama wanted to charge....

[HardRockCamaro]

The prices seem fair but I would like to know why a car under 5 years old with just 50,000 on the clock needs all new belts.

[philoldsmobile]

sucking the oil out through the dipstick tube is just being a cowboy, pure and simple there is absolutely no garantee they have got all the old oil out, thats what the drain plug is for....


i'd take it back, and demand they do it again, FOC, and properly.

[art b]

Quoting: F Body

Because we plan to run the Panda until it dies, I change the oil at 1,000 miles and again at 6,000. It took a few minutes to figure out the weird oil filter holder and how to remove the pipework the first time.
Second time the whole operation took about 15 minutes, pitty I forgot to take the plug out of the drain can and all the oil ran down the drive  

The only other garage service it will get is the two year 24,000 mile jobby, but at £265 it won't be at no bleeding Fiat garage  

surely if ya gonna keep it for a long time you would be better of getting it serviced properly not a a sh!tehole main dealers.............
as people say the main dealer service history is worth very little when selling.

.you will never find anyone who has been happy with a main dealers efforts,

my mate had his TT seviced at 18k and they said it wasnt due for its first oil change........!! but they wanted to put 4 new tyres on it.........

so he went else where to get the oil done after paying 400 bucks for them to fook about

go figure......

[DanC]

I don't see the problem fiat charging so much for an oil service.

They have to fund the ferrari F1 team some how