Company car to be serviced at Halfords, and not main dealer?

[zabba]

I have a company car which needs it's first service, its managed by a big leasing company and once I notified them that a service was due they booked me into a Halfords autocentre in a couple of weeks. I presume this is to save costs over getting it serviced by Audi.

It is their car and I know I don't have any say in where it gets serviced, but I would rather it got serviced by Audi, simply because I am considering purchasing it when the lease expires after 2 years, and would rather have an Audi service history if I did.

Is it common for leasing companies to do this? I would have thought they would want to maximise value at auction of a 2/3 year old car by having a main dealer service history. Not knowing how the trade works maybe this has no impact on value and they save costs as much they can.

[Denis O]

So you can either have it serviced by a muppet with an Audi badge on his overall or a Halfords badge on his overall. Frying pan and fire if you ask me. The only way to be sure it's seviced properly is to use a known and trusted indy.

The reason the lease comapny do this is as you rightly say, to save money. They are assisted by EU block exemption which allows anyone to have their car serviced outside the main dealer neatwork and still maintain the manufacturers warranty. Some restrictions on the garage; must be VAT registered and use OEM parts and probably others.

I suspect your lease costs will reflect this cost saving made by the lease company.

[truck71]

My Leased Audi had it's first service at the local kwik fit, significantly more helpful than the Audi crowd who've looked after it ever since..

[zabba]

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying Audi would service it any better than Halfords, I know that main dealers can be shockingly bad. It's just the perceived value it adds to a newish car to have a main dealer history.

I'm sure they have done their calcs and it works out cheaper over the period to use non main dealer, was just a bit surprised.

[Hugo a Gogo]

I would imagine 1st service is only an oil/filter change and visual check

many lease companies don't give a hoot about servicing

[LuS1fer]

So to summarise, you want the car serviced at inflated prices for your own future benefit so you can be impressed by the fact it has a full Audi service history even though you will know it's history as you've had it from new.


Weird.

[john2443]

Given that modern cars don't need much doing at a service, not like the old days when stuff had to be adjusted and some skill was involved, whoever does it they're just going to bolt whatever new bits on that the schedule says and will all tend towards replacing it, eg brakes pads/discs at 60000 whether needed or not, it probably doesn't matter who does it.

Well, this applies for a company car, I would take any of mine anywhere near a main dealer, Halfords or Quickfit!

[hornetrider]

LuS1fer said:

So to summarise, you want the car serviced at inflated prices for your own future benefit so you can be impressed by the fact it has a full Audi service history even though you will know it's history as you've had it from new.


Weird.

Jesus wept.

I wouldn't consider buying a 2/3 year old ex-lease car with a couple of Halfords stamps in the book, I can tell you that.

[D1ngd0ng]

Hugo a Gogo said:

many lease companies don't give a hoot about servicing

Not so sure about that, as long as the car is under warranty then our fleet company insist on main dealer servicing (but it goes to a main deal which is miles away as I presume they put all work through them for staffs/cheshire) plus the indie that they go to after is (probably a happy accident) fairly decent and know their onions.

[LuS1fer]

hornetrider said:

Jesus wept.

I wouldn't consider buying a 2/3 year old ex-lease car with a couple of Halfords stamps in the book, I can tell you that.

So don't. Life is so full of hard choices. Audi dealers will be buying a red carpet to greet you because they can afford to.

[trickywoo]

hornetrider said:

I wouldn't consider buying a 2/3 year old ex-lease car.

This bit applies to me.

I'd not be worried about the stamp in the book as main dealer services are pretty flaky anyway.

[Truckosaurus]

The lease company will likely get a massive reduction in the labour rate for giving Halfords all their servicing business so will save much more than they'll loose in (slightly) lower resale price (car will still be sold as 'FSH').

[Deva Link]

truck71 said:

My Leased Audi had it's first service at the local kwik fit, significantly more helpful than the Audi crowd who've looked after it ever since..

There's a thread somewhere (perhaps on here) about someone who took his Audi for service and it turned out the dealer took it to Kwik-Fit to have the work done.

In the OPs case the lease company has probably tried to beat Audi down on price and been to told to f-off so they're using someone else. A VW dealer 'serviced' our Golf recently under VW's service plan and the invoice sent to VW was for £68 inc parts, labour & VAT so a VAG dealer can do it cheap if they want to.

What amazes me about lease companies is they expect you to treat their cars well but won't do anything to co-operate with you.

[D900SP]

john2443 said:

Given that modern cars don't need much doing at a service, not like the old days when stuff had to be adjusted and some skill was involved, whoever does it they're just going to bolt whatever new bits on that the schedule says and will all tend towards replacing it, eg brakes pads/discs at 60000 whether needed or not, it probably doesn't matter who does it.

Well, this applies for a company car, I would take any of mine anywhere near a main dealer, Halfords or Quickfit!

Many new cars have "service actions" which are NOT warranty items but are updates either with software or parts that should be carried out while the vehicle is being serviced.
These items would only be attended to while the vehicle is at the official dealer.
Example:
There was a Porsche Cayenne key replacement service action for early cars.
That had time limit to this work and if not done, it then becomes a customer pay repair.

[zabba]

LuS1fer said:

So to summarise, you want the car serviced at inflated prices for your own future benefit so you can be impressed by the fact it has a full Audi service history even though you will know it's history as you've had it from new.


Weird.

I might know the history, but if I sell it on 2 years later the person I try and sell it to won't. I appreciate the leasing company has no interest in my future needs and understand why they do this, but I the point was I was surprised that when these cars go to auction, whoever has done the servicing has no impact on value (or not enough impact to reflect the savings to service costs)

[Ozone]

It's quite common, i had a Scooby on lease with service included and they wanted to do the same, it was my lease so i booked it in to a dealer myself telling the lease co that Halfords couldn't do it at a convenient time for me. They didn't question it, but the dealer moaned that the lease co/maintenance co would screw them on the price and only cover the absolute minimum.

[Deva Link]

D900SP said:

Many new cars have "service actions" which are NOT warranty items but are updates either with software or parts that should be carried out while the vehicle is being serviced.

I think that's often overblown by the "must be franchised dealer serviced" brigade. Some owners on the MB forum love to post up lists from the US of service advisories, but the dealer will only do these if the customer makes a related complaint. Software updates can take literally hours and the dealers hate doing them as they tie up bays and diagnostic machines.

[Vince70]

i would of thought the only real problem will be once you buy the car and want anything done under warranty after a couple of years
as it won't have a full audi service history audi will do there upmost to make sure that any warranty claims are invalid.
But i guess this is the decision you have to make.
if your that worried about it and want to keep the car couldn't you do a deal with the lease company and pay the difference.

[Hugo a Gogo]

D1ngd0ng said:

Hugo a Gogo said:

many lease companies don't give a hoot about servicing

Not so sure about that, as long as the car is under warranty then our fleet company insist on main dealer servicing (but it goes to a main deal which is miles away as I presume they put all work through them for staffs/cheshire) plus the indie that they go to after is (probably a happy accident) fairly decent and know their onions.

that'll be why I didn't say "all"

[LuS1fer]

zabba said:

I might know the history, but if I sell it on 2 years later the person I try and sell it to won't. I appreciate the leasing company has no interest in my future needs and understand why they do this, but I the point was I was surprised that when these cars go to auction, whoever has done the servicing has no impact on value (or not enough impact to reflect the savings to service costs)

I understand but think people put far too much value on a dealer FSH. Put it this way, when you come to buy the car, would you buy it, sell it and replace it with a similar car with a full Audi SH confident that it's going to be better but at a premium? I wouldn't, I always buy cars based entirely on condition and what history there is and whether it drives well, MOTs etc.

I think people get blinded by badges and the con that goes with premium ink. A stamp means nothing to me, I want to see invoices and work done. What is certain is that Audi will maximise their profit just the same as Halfords will. I also doubt there is any empirical evidence pointing the fact that cars serviced by halfords are any worse than Audi-serviced cars.

Any safety issues will be the subject of a recall anyway.