Service own car or continue paying for services?

[MrCarMan]

New here as I'm looking for a bit of advice when it comes to servicing my own car. I drive a lot of miles a year (30K+) and as a result I have to have my car serviced every 5 months which soon adds up. It currently has a FSH but it's costing me £800 every 15 months (1 x "Major service" and 2 x "Minor service") - The minor service only includes oil and oil filter, where as the major service includes oil, oil filter, air filter and fuel filter. Of course, what I'm really paying for here is the stamp! I can get the parts and liquids myself and the same 3 services would cost me £150 - I do this with our other car which I don't mind not having a FSH as it's 20 years old with 200K on the clock.

I've got the car for another 4 years at least, it's already got 50K on the clock, so over the next 4 years I'll be adding roughly 120K to it. I'm guessing with that sort of mileage it's pretty pointless paying for it to be serviced? What will a FSH add to a car with 170K on the clock? £300?

If I was to service it myself, would I be allowed to stamp the service book myself? Obviously I wouldn't put "Serviced by a main Ford dealer" or some rubbish like that, maybe just order a custom stamp saying "Serviced by (my name) on (date)" or "Self-Serviced by owner on (date)" or something along those lines anyway - I'd also keep all receipts and invoices for liquids and parts! Obviously I know that will never be as good as having a FSH with stamps from a garage, but if you've got a choice between a car with no receipts or stamps and a car with receipts and stamps that say it was self-serviced, then you're still more likely to choose the latter I'd image!

[Chris32345]

I've always self serviced mine not had any problems
But never sold privately
That being said if the guy seemed genuine and had recipets for the parts and all seemed good with the car is have no problems with it being self serviced

[Rewe]

What car is it and how old is it now? Some cars will still have enough value at 170k to make a FSM important. Others less so!

[Coilspring]

Unless it is something a bit special, a fsh at 170k is not going to make much difference, if any.

What would help is keeping all the invoices for all the servicing and repairs (parts and oils etc ). A pile of actual paperwork carries more weight than a book full of stamps. Even if it is all carried out by you. A real fsh should have all the receipts to match the stamps, but very few do. In my opinion a stamp in a book, on its own, is worthless.

But if it is something special, then a service by a recogised dealer/specialist/indepenent might make the extra cost worthwhile.

[b2hbm]

If the car is something like a Porsche, Lotus or higher end Audi/BMW/etc then in my experience buyers always look for service history. Cynically I'd say they pay as much attention to the stamp in the book as the car itself, but that's just me. A few years ago we bought an Audi just shy of 6 years old advertised as FSH... when I looked in the book it had been serviced twice, which was technically allowed. I'd prefer your home servicing to that.

If it's prestige then I just pay the money for the stamp, if it's mainstream or I don't intend to sell within the next couple of years then I'll have no problem doing it myself. Given the predicted mileage on yours when you come to sell, I'd just DIY and write dates and what you did in the book. If you P/X ti a dealer they will grumble but the car's heading for the auctions at that mileage anyway so you'll save more than you lose on trade in.

If you sell privately then at that mileage I'd be more impressed with a genuine DIY car with records of replacements, especially if you have a good MoT pass record as well.

[tapkaJohnD]

Together with those above who say look at the car's value, look at the cost per mile. With your mileage that's 2 1/2pence, about half your fuel costs.
John

[PositronicRay]

I service our cars, but plan to run them till the wheels drop off.

I note the date and mileage in the book, and staple the receipts to the page. As any old fool can have a stamp made, little guarantee of anything really.

[pfnsht]

I don't see a problem in using the book to record home services - conveinent and if you're not getting done at the main dealer what else is it going to be used for

I have zero problem with home servicing myself but I'm in the minority. Depends what car it is (as said high end will attract more attention to dealer / specailist FSH) however in reality it's not going to be worth that much and a folder full of service and maintenace items as well as a list of services carried out would make the car more valuable to me as a buyer vs one with nothing or one with long life dealer servicing.

.

[Leveret]

Service it yourself - not only save a fortune, you'll know the quality of the oil you use. Air and pollen filters in this dust free country merely need cleaning every 30,000 miles or so with a stiff paint brush. (the ones in our 140,000 mile 18yr old Focus are original). Suggest change fuel filter at 100,000. Our fuel pump failed at 113,000 - not sure if changing the fuel pipe filter would have prolonged its life as the pump has a filter on its intake. The MoT does all the safety checks covered in a service. If you record everything you've done in the service book, your car will have a full service history. .

[pcn1]

For my cars and bikes, in the service history book I just write "serviced by owner- parts invoice No ** in history folder"
In my history folder I keep the numbered receipts. Usually ECP (or whoever) with my address and date clearly written.

As I keep my vehicles a long time then residuals are not important. I guess if you have a newish car and flip it after a year then a dealer stamp is more important.

Pays your money......

[Coilspring]

Leveret said:

Service it yourself - not only save a fortune, you'll know the quality of the oil you use. Air and pollen filters in this dust free country merely need cleaning every 30,000 miles or so with a stiff paint brush. (the ones in our 140,000 mile 18yr old Focus are original). Suggest change fuel filter at 100,000. Our fuel pump failed at 113,000 - not sure if changing the fuel pipe filter would have prolonged its life as the pump has a filter on its intake. The MoT does all the safety checks covered in a service. If you record everything you've done in the service book, your car will have a full service history. .

Pollen filter may well be original but I bet it is falling apart and therefore not working.

Air filter original. No way. Would be nothing at all left of it

[Chris32345]

Leveret said:

Service it yourself - not only save a fortune, you'll know the quality of the oil you use. Air and pollen filters in this dust free country merely need cleaning every 30,000 miles or so with a stiff paint brush. (the ones in our 140,000 mile 18yr old Focus are original). Suggest change fuel filter at 100,000. Our fuel pump failed at 113,000 - not sure if changing the fuel pipe filter would have prolonged its life as the pump has a filter on its intake. The MoT does all the safety checks covered in a service. If you record everything you've done in the service book, your car will have a full service history. .

The mot does not have all the safety checks covered by a service as that arnt allowed to remove anything not even engine covers so lots of parts can't be checked
Brakes a a big one thing like rusted up slide pins or sticky piston's need to be checked by yourself or a garage as they arnt part of the mot

[underwhelmist]

Coilspring said:

Leveret said:

Service it yourself - not only save a fortune, you'll know the quality of the oil you use. Air and pollen filters in this dust free country merely need cleaning every 30,000 miles or so with a stiff paint brush. (the ones in our 140,000 mile 18yr old Focus are original). Suggest change fuel filter at 100,000. Our fuel pump failed at 113,000 - not sure if changing the fuel pipe filter would have prolonged its life as the pump has a filter on its intake. The MoT does all the safety checks covered in a service. If you record everything you've done in the service book, your car will have a full service history. .

Pollen filter may well be original but I bet it is falling apart and therefore not working.

Air filter original. No way. Would be nothing at all left of it

I service our cars myself, but they're pretty old and I intend to keep them as long as possible. As others have said, I note what I've done, date and mileage in the service book but I hadn't thought about cross referencing to the parts receipt, good idea.

Re the pollen filter - I replaced the cabin filter on my CRV with 100,000 miles which had a book full of dealer service stamps. The filter that came out was one of the grottiest, filthiest things I've ever seen, and the atmosphere in the cabin improved markedly after replacement!

Edit: Air filters are so cheap and quick to change (well, usually - thanks Alfa) I don't know why you'd skimp on it.

[anonymous-user]

Maybe I’m weird but I’d actually prefer a self serviced car over a garage serviced one. To me it shows that the owner cares about and is more aware of the car rather than just sticking it in a garage every time the spanner comes up on the dash.

Service it yourself and enjoy saving £650 every 15 months. Note the dates and mileages in the service book, write ‘self serviced - refer to invoice set 01’ or similar, keep all of the invoices in one plastic wallet per service and label it. I would even go so far as to say that counts as FSH in my eyes.

Generalising a bit, given the attitude to high mileage in this country anyone who is looking at buying a 170k car may very well be the type to appreciate that you have serviced it yourself and be prepared to pay the same amount as they would for a car with full main dealer history.

[bearman68]

Always very skeptical about a main dealer service. Would prefer to see a nicely running home serviced car.

Main dealer servicing is normally done by the 16yr old tea boy (In my opinion anyway), so I'd much prefer someone responsible doing it. And ideally a bit more frequently than every 10 billion miles the main dealer recommends. I've always done my oil every 5k miles. Never lost an engine or a turbo in hundreds of thousands of miles.

[Scootersp]

I peel off (they seems to come off nice and easily now) the oil sticker from the can onto a piece of A4 paper and write the date mileage etc on it.

The savings you make can be used to freshen other bits or saved to pay for some genuine repair that's outside of your league etc. So after 'x' years you may have new shocks and springs or control arms etc etc (and enjoyed driving around on them) rather than just spent huge sums on the mundane servicing. Should be a win win for you and any potential buyer down the line?

[dhutch]

I don't have the time these days to service myself, but certainly would not look down on a independent garages stamp in the book on anything that was out of the first 3years/40k miles.

[ChampionRabbit]

For years I've used Google Keep to write simple, dated records of all car work/service/repair that I've done on my vehicles. I use Fuelly as well, which is worth including when selling as proof of accurate fuel use.

The way I see it is that anybody buying a car from me is either going to trust me (rightly) and be impressed by my full work/service history, or else think I'm a liar in which case it really doesn't matter because they shouldn't buy a car from me anyway if I'm being all Arthur Daley...

Also, a garage stamp means virtually nothing given that many/most shady used car lots will happily stamp as serviced anything leaving their forecourt...

I'm talking about 100k plus cars, obviously.

[selym]

I service my 165k Skoda diesel, only going to the specialist for stuff I can't do, especially the DSG oil change. I also do every other service on the Monaro and the wife's Mini Cooper S.

[ninjag]

Nothing puts me off a car faster than a main dealer service history. A good indy or self servicing with receipts is far more valuable in my eyes but unfortunately the industry seem to be obsessed with main dealer servicing despite my own varied experience being it means sod all has actually been done.