how much do you pay for a service?
Discussion
£200 for an oil, filters and plug change is a wee bit steep. Parts for the "mini-service (2 filters, plugs and a good quality oil) are about £60, and a reasonably competent mechanic should be able to do those in about an hour.
£200 for a full service (which includes checking and adjusting, lubricating, etc, and a whole lot more) would be a bit more reasonable.
I have to admit though that I've never paid anyone to service the S, so I don't know what the going rate is.
You need to check exactly what you're getting for the money. Ask for a list of service items.
£200 for a full service (which includes checking and adjusting, lubricating, etc, and a whole lot more) would be a bit more reasonable.
I have to admit though that I've never paid anyone to service the S, so I don't know what the going rate is.
You need to check exactly what you're getting for the money. Ask for a list of service items.
As above. Depends what you are having done. £55ph + VAT seems to be the going rate for labour (down South) plus parts. All you need to do is price up the parts and get an estimate for how long it takes to do the work to see if the figure quoted is reasonable. Certainly no more than 45mins max to change oil & filter. You can get good qulaity oil from Asda for about £20 for 4lts and a V8 oil filter from a Landrover dealer is £12.44, so a Ford one might be similar. So you could do an oil & filter yourself for around £50.
v8s4me said:
As above. Depends what you are having done. £55ph + VAT seems to be the going rate for labour (down South) plus parts. All you need to do is price up the parts and get an estimate for how long it takes to do the work to see if the figure quoted is reasonable. Certainly no more than 45mins max to change oil & filter. You can get good qulaity oil from Asda for about £20 for 4lts and a V8 oil filter from a Landrover dealer is £12.44, so a Ford one might be similar. So you could do an oil & filter yourself for around £50.
45 mins? Last time I did mine it took 20, and I don't have a ramp! I even changed the oil in the Cerbera (which I had never tackled before) in 30 minutes. You should be able to do the oil and filter, fuel filter and plugs in just about an hour. the actual time taken by professional mechanics who are being paid by the hour, may go up as well as down
IIRC the last V6 filter I bought cost about £8 - I bought 10 litres of REALLY expensive oil for the Cerbera, 5 litres of Mobil 1 for the S, plus a Cerbera oil filter and a V6 oil filter, for £120 or so.
ETA sorry, that comes over a bit smartarse, I only mean to emphasise to the OP how much you can save by learning to do these relatively simple things yourself.
tvrgit said:
I only mean to emphasise to the OP how much you can save by learning to do these relatively simple things yourself.
Couldn't agree more, plus if you look down the average service schedule there is a lot of stuff like check lights, check washers, lube door locks and bonnet catch etc. etc.....Why pay someone £50+ an hour to do stuff like that ? (yes, I've always been tight
)
wanacoop said:
So, From the comments above, i may aswell do it myself. Is any of it particularly tricky?
From your profile I would say your day job requires a lot more skills than an 'S' service so I would just get stuck in and learn your way around it. Access to the filter is a bit awkward but once its freed with a chain wrench it comes off ok, just a bit of a fiddle to extricate past the pipes, body and chassis.Good to do it yourself as you get to know the car and very often spot and fix other bits that may cause you trouble in the future.
The money saved by DIY can also be spent on new shiny tools to increase your DIY capabilities.
Rob.
Oil change:
You need:
5 litres oil
filter
drain pan (you can buy these from halfords, or use a big deep tray - just make sure it hold 5 litres!
empty 5 litre container for old oil
a funnel
17mm spanner or socket for sump plug
some way of getting the old filter off (I'll come to that in a minute)
a jack and axle stands
Don't wear your good clothes - you'll end up with oil up to at least one elbow.
1. Jack the car up till you can get underneath (height will vary depending on circumference of trousers) and support it on stands. Check that it's steady - you don't want it falling and "breaking your curly-wurly" as I wrote in a Sprint article once.
2. You'll see the sump under the engine - it has a plug (bolt) in the left-hand side, halfway along the bottom edge. But the drain pan under the bolt, and use the 13mm spanner to remove the plug. As the plug comes out, the oil will drain into the pan - make sure you keep a hold of the plug AND the sealing washer that gouse round it.
3. Let all the oil drain into the pan, then replace the plug AND the washer, and do it up tight.
4. Now for the filter. You'll see it on the right-rear of the engine block, under the rear exhaust manifold. You need to unscrew it. Make sure you have the drain pan under the filter when you do.
Sometimes you're lucky and it will just unscrew (that happened to me once out of hyndreds of times) but usually it will need some leverage.
4a. you can thump a screwdriver through it, and turn it with that; or
4b. you can buy tools to get filters off. You can get strap wrenches or webbing wrenches that work on the same principle: yopu wrap it round, and as you apply torque to remove the filter, it automatically tightens.
4c. you can buy special oil filter pliers - I bought a pair and they have saved me a lot of grief - they adjust to the filter size, grip it and off it comes - perfect for the S where space around the filter is limited.
5. As you twist the filter off, oil will come out and run down the engine. Don't worry, as long as it ends up in the drain tray. Once the filter is off (3 or 4 turns) the tricky bit is fiddling it out of the space it's in. I find with mine that if I lift it back and down from above, I can sit it on top of the chassis and then dive underneath to manouevre it out.
6. Smear a little bit of oil around the rubber seal on the new filter, and then manouevre it into position by the same route. Engage it on the threads and then tighten it as far as you can by hand. Holding it in a cloth helps grip if your hands are oily (and they will be, believe me).
7. Clean off as much of the spilt oil around the filter as you can.
8. Remove the oil filler cap, put the funnel in, and pour in about 4 litres of oil and leave it for a few minutes while it runs down to the sump. Check the level on the dipstick and repeat till it's just a wee bit below the full mark. Remember to give the oil a few minutes each time to run down through the engine into the sump. Replace cap.
9. Start car, and check round the sump plug and round the filter for any oil leaks.
10. Stop engine, remove drain pan, lower car from stands.
11. Leave the oil to settle again, then check the level while the car is on a flat surface. The engine will now have refilled the filter, so some of the oil in the sump will have gone down - however the car is now level so the oil won't be sitting at an angle in the back of the sump, so the level on the dip stick might go up - make sure it's just on or slightly below the full mark.
12. Now dispose of the old oil and filter responsibly.
There you go! Usual disclaimers apply yadda yadda...
You should really also wear rubber gloves because used engine oil is nasty stuff.
That's taken me longer to write than it does to do the bleeding job...
You need:
5 litres oil
filter
drain pan (you can buy these from halfords, or use a big deep tray - just make sure it hold 5 litres!
empty 5 litre container for old oil
a funnel
17mm spanner or socket for sump plug
some way of getting the old filter off (I'll come to that in a minute)
a jack and axle stands
Don't wear your good clothes - you'll end up with oil up to at least one elbow.
1. Jack the car up till you can get underneath (height will vary depending on circumference of trousers) and support it on stands. Check that it's steady - you don't want it falling and "breaking your curly-wurly" as I wrote in a Sprint article once.
2. You'll see the sump under the engine - it has a plug (bolt) in the left-hand side, halfway along the bottom edge. But the drain pan under the bolt, and use the 13mm spanner to remove the plug. As the plug comes out, the oil will drain into the pan - make sure you keep a hold of the plug AND the sealing washer that gouse round it.
3. Let all the oil drain into the pan, then replace the plug AND the washer, and do it up tight.
4. Now for the filter. You'll see it on the right-rear of the engine block, under the rear exhaust manifold. You need to unscrew it. Make sure you have the drain pan under the filter when you do.
Sometimes you're lucky and it will just unscrew (that happened to me once out of hyndreds of times) but usually it will need some leverage.
4a. you can thump a screwdriver through it, and turn it with that; or
4b. you can buy tools to get filters off. You can get strap wrenches or webbing wrenches that work on the same principle: yopu wrap it round, and as you apply torque to remove the filter, it automatically tightens.
4c. you can buy special oil filter pliers - I bought a pair and they have saved me a lot of grief - they adjust to the filter size, grip it and off it comes - perfect for the S where space around the filter is limited.
5. As you twist the filter off, oil will come out and run down the engine. Don't worry, as long as it ends up in the drain tray. Once the filter is off (3 or 4 turns) the tricky bit is fiddling it out of the space it's in. I find with mine that if I lift it back and down from above, I can sit it on top of the chassis and then dive underneath to manouevre it out.
6. Smear a little bit of oil around the rubber seal on the new filter, and then manouevre it into position by the same route. Engage it on the threads and then tighten it as far as you can by hand. Holding it in a cloth helps grip if your hands are oily (and they will be, believe me).
7. Clean off as much of the spilt oil around the filter as you can.
8. Remove the oil filler cap, put the funnel in, and pour in about 4 litres of oil and leave it for a few minutes while it runs down to the sump. Check the level on the dipstick and repeat till it's just a wee bit below the full mark. Remember to give the oil a few minutes each time to run down through the engine into the sump. Replace cap.
9. Start car, and check round the sump plug and round the filter for any oil leaks.
10. Stop engine, remove drain pan, lower car from stands.
11. Leave the oil to settle again, then check the level while the car is on a flat surface. The engine will now have refilled the filter, so some of the oil in the sump will have gone down - however the car is now level so the oil won't be sitting at an angle in the back of the sump, so the level on the dip stick might go up - make sure it's just on or slightly below the full mark.
12. Now dispose of the old oil and filter responsibly.
There you go! Usual disclaimers apply yadda yadda...
You should really also wear rubber gloves because used engine oil is nasty stuff.
That's taken me longer to write than it does to do the bleeding job...
phillpot said:
I was just gunna look for that!JR said:
All of the comments above are fine for the 3,000 mile intermadiate oil and filter change but there is considerably more work to do on a service. Best to get yourself a copy of the TVR workshop checklist.
TVR S is 6,000 intermediate, 12,000 full service as per Phillpot's link.
tvrgit said:
JR said:
All of the comments above are fine for the 3,000 mile intermadiate oil and filter change but there is considerably more work to do on a service. Best to get yourself a copy of the TVR workshop checklist.
TVR S is 6,000 intermediate, 12,000 full service as per Phillpot's link.OP, just checked your profile, I hope you don't think the "how to" above is too patronising - I was bearing in mind that once you write something like that, you never know who is going to read it and follow it later, so you have to write to help the first-timer (or more importantly, stop them hurting themselves by missing something out)
JR said:
tvrgit said:
JR said:
All of the comments above are fine for the 3,000 mile intermadiate oil and filter change but there is considerably more work to do on a service. Best to get yourself a copy of the TVR workshop checklist.
TVR S is 6,000 intermediate, 12,000 full service as per Phillpot's link.If your mechanic knows S's and is including removing the exhaust so he can grease the front UJ of the prop-shaft as well as the rest of whats been listed above, then £200 might not seem so steep.
As said, you should do it yourself anyway, but if you are paying someone else, make sure you know what you are paying for
K
As said, you should do it yourself anyway, but if you are paying someone else, make sure you know what you are paying for
K
Thanks everyone for the advice!
Although i'm a plumber, so used to getting hands on, i've not had much experience with mechanics. So the step-by-step guide above is really great. Plus not having the right tools for the job is a pain in the rear!
Speaking to some workmates about this,and turns out one of them has a son who is a mechanic, so he may help me out.
Thanks again chaps!
Although i'm a plumber, so used to getting hands on, i've not had much experience with mechanics. So the step-by-step guide above is really great. Plus not having the right tools for the job is a pain in the rear!
Speaking to some workmates about this,and turns out one of them has a son who is a mechanic, so he may help me out.
Thanks again chaps!
Maybe going a little off subject, and whilest I am an advocate of do it yourself, I guess the other point of view is stick to what you're good at ?
For example (and I'm not having a pop at anyone or any trade)but if you're a plumber and can make a couple of hundred fitting a boiler in a day or an accountantcooking doing someones "books" etc. why not pay another professional to do what they're good at, servicing your car?
For example (and I'm not having a pop at anyone or any trade)but if you're a plumber and can make a couple of hundred fitting a boiler in a day or an accountant
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