My car (Seat Altea XL) is due its 40k service. Phoned the SEAT dealer for a price, £170 for the service.
However, if I opt for one of the dealer's standard "38 point" checks/service its only £69. But when I asked what this actually consisted of, she said oil and filter change and checks of everything else. What about the SEAT service I asked, well thats basically the same thing!
I am now trying to get a list of exactly what the SEAT service consists of to see if anything is missed out but on the face of it, its a better deal by far! And they will stamp my book etc.
Nice to be offered things cheaper from time to time...
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Probably using the Michael O'Leary charging model!
£69 for the service, but an extra £100 if you want the Service Book stamped and a premium rate phone number for the pleasure of trying to find out if the car is ready for collection.
:)
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>> £69 for the service,
+ The obligitory "you need a new set of discs and pads, and your tyres are below the recommended* limit, we have the parts in stock already"
* Recommended differs from Legal, mine where 2mm IIRC the legal is 1.6mm however Vauxhall recommend 3mm.
At the time I said i would leave it for now, as it was the middle of summer and would monitor i shopped around really and replaced them a couple of months later.
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The £69 might have warranty implications, what oil will they use? If its an older car I guess it dosn't matter, but as oil is around £25 for 4 litres of the good stuff they are not making much profit out of £69.
I buy cheap and nasty 10/40 semi for my dads Fiesta and £8 for 4 litres but I don't think SEAT would be too impressed if you used that.
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given that your ABS/TC module is likely to go wrong shortly, I would be squeaky clean about my service history
Last edited by: Zero on Wed 2 Jun 10 at 13:34
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Pretty sure Parks in Hamilton charge more than £69 just for the oil in a service :-(
I've bought a medium drum of VW 507.00 oil, if that's any use to you you're welcome to however much it takes at cost price (~£5/litre). You'd need to supply your own tub right enough ;-)
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Craig, thanks for the kind offer, surprisingly enough this deal is actually through Uncle Arnold!
Going in tomorrow with the service book and going to request a breakdown of what exactly is involved in each service!
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>> The £69 might have warranty implications, what oil will they use? If its an older car I guess it dosn't matter, but as oil is around £25 for 4 litres of the good stuff they are not making much profit out of £69. <<
With trade prices for fully synth oil being around £1.50 a litre I don't think they'll be too worried.
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If its an older car I guess it dosn't matter, but as oil is around £25 for 4 litres of the good stuff they are not making much profit out of £69
So if i had a Aston martin the (james bond car for sale) Ratts will any old oil do as it's a older model?
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Not for the first time I find myself wondering if my car would not run perfectly reliably on a regime of regular oil changes and little else.
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2 yrs in a row paid Parks and AClark for a service and the wrong oil was used. Semi rather thanfully synthetic. Challanged they said cheaper service = cheap oil.
Paid £199 this year at ANOther Nissan garage - fully synthetic used and book stamped
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Well took car in today and went over the service requirement. The cheaper service was not going to be the all singing and dancing SEAT spec oil - I thought with these VW PD engines there was only one type of oil to use??? Anyway they are now putting in the correct SEAT oil (allegedly).
Got the standard phone call telling me that the front tyres need replaced and tracking done, thanks but no thanks was my reply.
Car has also passed its MOT with them (so tyres can't be that bad).
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Paid dealer 89 for a vw service a couple of months back. Used the correct PD oil, stamped the book, coffee, wash and vac. only advisory was exhaust which was just starting to blow.
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I think stamping the book is new on these cheap services - I've had these offers on 3 of our cars, SEAT, Honda and Mitsubishi, and they were all adamant that they wouldn't be able to stamp the book as they wouldn't be working to the manufacturers schedule.
The Honda one was the most annoying - £99 vs £160 and they were adamant that the same (fully synth) oil would be used and that, in practice, the scope of the work would be the same. However the "proper" service included renewing the HondaCare cover, so all in all was probably a better deal.
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A further update to this, and to my other post re extended warranties.
When I had put my car in for service I had mentioned a noise coming from the steering / clutch especially on full lock. Turns out it is the DMF and they have replaced this under warranty (think the warranty runs out on 20 June!)
However whilst they were doing this, they also noticed excessive play in the steering rack so have also replaced that under warranty.
Except, the part that SEAT have sent doesn't fit, SEAT are adamant its the right part, dealer has sent photos to SEAT to prove it doesn't and as of 2 mins ago, the discussions are still ongoing ...
Wonder what the approx cost of those 2 items being replaced under warranty is?
Car has been in for a week now and I have a Hyundai i30 as a courtesy car. God, its so difficult to get used to a low powered petrol car after driving higher powered turbo diesels for so long!
Re warranty, I think I would be taking a huge gamble not investing in an extended warranty..
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>> Wonder what the approx cost of those 2 items being replaced under warranty is?
A *lot* of money, I would think. I reckon your dealer's done well for you - it can't have been easy getting SEAT's authority to replace those items when noise / play are mainly matters of opinion.
We have an Ibiza in the family - it's quite a nice car in many ways, but I was most dismayed that it failed MOT at 4yrs old and that SEAT UK thought that was fine.
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blimey Bobby, what you been doing with it, rallycross?
At 38k and two years and 9 months, mine went back with nothing wrong with it. The only warranty issue was the electricl connection to items on the steering wheel.
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Well they still have not got to the bottom of this. Dealer wants their courtesy car back tomorrow and SEAT have agreed to pay for a hire car for me until it gets resolved.
So Hyundai i30 goes back tomorrow and I am getting a Quashy hire car. I told them that I go on my driving holiday at the end of next week and if the matter is still not resolved I will need a similar sized car to the Altea XL so I don't know the fact that I am getting a Squashy as opposed to a Picanto means that they don't hold out much hope for it being ready.
Also worryingly, the car passes through its 3 years (and end of warranty) on 20 June......
Over the last 3 years I have also had 3 alloy wheels replaced under warranty, and a new Radio/CD Head Unit under warranty, without any quibbles from SEAT.
Zero, I have been rather gentle with it actually as I knew I was wanting to keep this for a few years more.............
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Well £1400 quid plus cost of hire car later I have my car back. All covered by SEAT thanks to the Arnold Clark dealership for pursuing them and dealing with me in a most professional way.
They wouldn't give me an invoice as it was warranty work, but didn't mind me seeing it and the cost of £1400 included DMF and steering rack and a few other bits and bobs.
This episode has taught me a few things
The benefits of having a dealer service history and building up a loyalty with the one dealer.
That I will now purchase an aftermarket warranty of some sort as the cost of these fixes (albeit dealer prices) are very scary. Realistically if that was out of warranty and I was given an expected bill like that, then it would be trade-in time straight away.
Finally, the last learning point is, thanks to SEAT for providing me with a lovely Qashqai hire car and I now know what will be on my list for next change of car!
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I am glad the outcome was good but these items surely should not have failed. I get a new company car in just over year. Food for thought if I was to opt out and take the money. Although with interest rates low maybe I should use cash to buy nearly new and then save the extra cash I get.... plenty of time to work out what's best for me.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Fri 18 Jun 10 at 15:59
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It gets me worried reading these tales of early part failures and early MOT failures. Ye Olde Worlde '99 Golf has never missed a beat, had a part or failed a test. '05 2.0 PD Golf just turned 100K and equally faultless. I wonder what percentage of cars have these relatively major faults? Anyway, year old Octavia coming next week. Same 2.0 PD Diesel as the Golf - I'm ignoring all the scaremongering and going with the familiar. I'll post any catastrophes...
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>> '05 2.0 PD Golf just turned 100K and equally faultless.
Various VW diesels, particularly the 2.0, seem to be affected by porous cylinder heads when conveniently just out of warranty.
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Bill - tell me more, what happens when the cylinder head is porous, how would you know??
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Google "vw+porous+head"
Coolant loss is one noted issue, but on a colleagues car, the problem he had was that it was very difficult to start from stone cold. Cost him £3500 to get it fixed, but certainly included new glow plugs and injectors.
Didn't Golf's of the age yours is have ABS module issues too?
Last edited by: Bill Payer on Sat 19 Jun 10 at 22:39
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Apparently so. There is now a UK company offering a fix at a reasonable price though. There seems to be various known faults with almost all cars. The problem for me is that I don't particularly like the cars that are said to be more reliable. Taking delivery of an Octavia on Tuesday - same running gear as the Golf. I like the way it drives, like the engine, like the economy and the space without it being too large. And the price, of course. I can't see what else I could have that fulfils the same criteria at the price and age. It's a done deal now, and it's not that important in the big scheme of things. 2 years warranty left and I'll chop it in if it's problematic in that time. I take the point though that some of these problems tend to crop up after the 3 year period. We'll see!
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Dealer offers cheaper service! - sherlock47
