Car Servicing

[Steve]

How often do you service your car? Do you go to the main dealer or do you fo elsewhere? If you go elswhere is it cheaper and how much cheaper is it?

[SAD]

I have a 2007 is220d - I always have it serviced at Lexus Bolton - although I only do about 7000 mile a year, I have it serviced every 12 months.

Its not cheap - £600 for 60,000 mile service (but included 2 tyres and an MOT), £300 for 70,000 service (although I had only done 65,000 miles but its 12 months were up)

I would rather have the dealer stamps in the service booklet for when I change the vehicle as I would look for the same when looking for a new vehicle

[Steve]

i know how you feel about the stamps... nice to see in the book.

What would you think if you was buying a used car with aftermarket stamps? Would you still buy the car?

[afterburner]

My car is kind of old now, and probably only worth in the region of £2k. So I look to do most routine servicing and repairs myself. There are things I don't do, such as anything to do with suspension, timing belts, major work, but I'm a reasonably competent amateur mechanic and I don't mind getting my hands dirty, so I'll do the simple stuff if I can. This is stuff like routine servicing, fluid/filter changes, brakes, thermostats, etc.

I keep all receipts and mark the service book myself, so that the history is maintained. But I don't see the value of paying for someone else to do work I can do just as easily for a car such as mine.

Of course if my car were newer and more valuable, I would probably still use dealers or specialist independent garages (as I do with my BMW). The local BMW dealer is actually very reasonable on service costs, so I don't mind going there to maintain the dealer service history on that car.