Should you get a service book these days

[PostHeads123]

My mum bought a 1 year old car from a large main dealership in the North West, when she picked up the car the paper work missing wrong, firstly no service book and second the warranty paper was for a different car (I've only found this all out today she didn't want to tell me).

They are telling my mum they sent the service book in the post must of gone missing .... mmmm b*ll sh*t mmmm now saying "these days you don't service books its all on computer", is the correct or just another fob-off, I assume if a fob off I can demand they produce a service book if its all on the database ?

On the warranty side of it, the car had few years remaining on the warranty is there something that need to be done to transfer it to the new owner, the paper work she did receive was for a different car in a different name ?

I have bought a car in 15 years so not sure what the score is these days ?

Edited by PostHeads123 on Friday 11th September 14:47

[P-Jay]

Well they still exist, the excuse of it all being recorded on a data base somewhere these days only really rings true if you only ever intent to have it serviced at a franchise dealer and your main concern is a warranty claim if something goes wrong - when it comes time to sell it a private buyer or non-franchise dealer won't have access to the database and it will have to be priced accordingly.

You can get duplicate books, the dealer checks the database and stamps them up accordingly.

Not that as many people care about them now.

[djt100]

How long ago did she buy it, Can she not return it as not described, IE no service book , warranty ,etc... they'll soon have something appear.

[Craikeybaby]

What car is it? Some brands, such as Mazda, haven't had service books for a while now.

[PostHeads123]

Thanks, she had it a week now, I'm couple of hundred miles away from her but will be heading up there next week to make a personal visit to dealership, just wanted to get my facts straight first.

[Steve_W]

Depends on the car/manufacturer.

My 62 plate BMW 3 series (F31 model) didn't come with a service book; none of them do.

It's all recorded on the fob and updated on the dealer system when the car goes in for any work. Presumably that'll be the norm for all BMWs (and Minis?) now whenever a new model is launched.

[Limpet]

Definitely car dependent. Some do, some don't. My F30 3-series doesn't have one, but SWMBOs R57 Mini does.

[Fas1975]

Steve_W said:

Depends on the car/manufacturer.

My 62 plate BMW 3 series (F31 model) didn't come with a service book; none of them do.

It's all recorded on the fob and updated on the dealer system when the car goes in for any work. Presumably that'll be the norm for all BMWs (and Minis?) now whenever a new model is launched.

Same with the wife's ML. Service history available through Mercedes Service Portal

[Thermobaric]

Whilst it is common for service books to be fiddled with, surely it's just as easy if not more so to fiddle the numbers electronically?

[anothernameitist]

I have a small note book of my own, the type you can get from an good stationery supplier.

On the front I put the car details and then in the pages inside I put the service history, services, replaced items like tyres and bulbs.

I also keep all the receipts in a nice folder at home, the folder is also from any good stationery shop.

that way I have a service record all of my own.

I photocopy it all when I sell the car and leave the original with the new owner.

Really nice touch I think!

[LovelyTia]

I thought the same when I got my car. Turns out the service book is included in the manual at the back before the index.