Monday 6th June 2005

Shopping car savings available

Independent service keeps warranty, finds research

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Your shopping car? You could save £141

Get your car serviced at an independent and save money. So far so obvious. But you can keep your warranty too, according to What Car magazine.

The magazine reckoned that Britain’s motorists could save £185 million when it comes to servicing their cars, according to its research. Owners who have their cars serviced by independent garages will save, on average, over £50 compared to the same service from a franchised dealer -– and that’s on a service carried out to manufacturer specifications so as not to invalidate a car’s warranty.

What Car went undercover to check servicing costs at 200 garages covering cars from five of the top 10 selling manufacturers in the UK: BMW, Citroën, Ford, Toyota and Volkswagen. Servicing quotes were compared from garages in the same area with the service carried out to manufacturer recommendations and using manufacturer-approved parts.

The biggest difference the researchers found was on a Citroën 1.4-litre C3 being serviced in Wales. Main dealers charged an average of £266 for a major service, while nearby independents quoted only £125 – a saving of £141. Overall, the research found that Citroën C3 owners would save an average of £68 using independent garages for servicing, followed by BMW 5 Series owners saving £62 on average, Volkswagen Golf owners saving £50 and Ford Mondeo owners saving an average of £49. By contrast, owners of the Toyota RAV4 4x4 would only save an average of £13 by getting their car serviced at an independent garage.

"Many owners of new cars still think they have to have their cars serviced at a franchised dealer to keep their warranty intact," said magazine group editor Steve Fowler. "That’s not the case – as long as the independent dealer is VAT-registered, carries out the work to manufacturer recommendations using manufacturer-approved parts, the car’s warranty will still be valid. The owners will have saved themselves a few quid in the process."

A previous What Car? survey revealed that independent garages’ servicing standards are often higher than franchised dealers’ (What Car? November 2004), while What Car? has also revealed in the past how some franchised dealers have given incorrect information about the validity of warranties on cars serviced outside the dealer network.

"There’s no doubt that having your car serviced at a franchised dealer is the easiest solution, but it’s likely to cost you more,’ said Fowler. ‘Spending a little time finding an independent who’ll carry out the work to the right standard will pay dividends. However, we have also found that franchised dealers are open to negotiation – it’s possible to haggle over the cost of servicing and save money that way."

[rtp]

I used t have Jeep Grang Cherokee which was serviced by an agent. The charged never less than £500 and often made serious errors, despite being told the correct way to do the job. I had the sll the car after they caused gearbox damage. My local one man band would have done the job properly and charged less than half.

[Pasthim]

I have read about this before but can anyone tell me how you make sure they use (in my case) Lexus oil filters, air filters, brake pads, etc and even know exactly what is needed a each service. I read that you can can the service schedule from the manufacturer but has anyone done that? Lexus blitzed me for over £500 last service, I want to avoid that again!!