Ouch! Booked it for the 6th of May. I reckon it would have about 3300 miles on it by then. £30 for an oil change on the Fiesta.
I am dreading the first major service can't wait for the warranty to expire so I can take it out of dealer hands.
According to the schedule they don't even inspect the drums for that.
On the plus side my new tax disc will be a whopping £30 for the year :).
I could phone around but there are very few FIAT dealers in the area, its not worth travelling 20 miles just to save £10.
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Do you actually need to take it to a Fiat dealer to maintain warranty?
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Set yourself a challenge, £60 off that should be about do-able :-)
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>>These are very good www.boschcarservice.co.uk/<<
That's interesting - there is one just down the road from me, I always wondered who that outfit were.
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You are unlikely to need the warranty for anything major. Particularly with your mileage/useage.
Do the oil and filter yourself and save a fortune.
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>>Do the oil and filter yourself and save a fortune.
Do it with parts purchased from the Fiat dealer and (I believe) the warranty will be intact.
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There is a 'rattle' coming from the underneath the car when accelerating which I am concerned maybe the cat so I do want to keep it within a FIAT dealer, it just makes claims to much easier.
What I will do is phone round the other dealers in Greater Manchester and North Cheshire and see if they will play the game.
The rattle is probably just something quite simple but if it does turn out to be the cat it is a lot better to have it under no quibble warranty.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Thu 14 Apr 11 at 15:22
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>> There is a 'rattle' coming from the underneath the car when accelerating >>
Hopefully just a loose heat shield.
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I've noticed it only seems to do it when the engine is warm. The car seems to be running smoother and smoother now the engine is loosening up. A couple of people have commented on how smooth the car is at low speeds.
The gears (one of my earliest complaints) have now loosened up nicely too meaning its a pleasure to change to gear.
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For me the annual service cost is well worth ending up with a 100% quibble free warranty and keeping a relationship with the local dealer plus ensuring any updates/recalls are attended to.
Then if you have a warranty fault it is reassuring there can be no argument.
Out of warranty 100% agree go elsewhere.
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To maintain the warranty it needs to be serviced to Fiats service schedule using genuine parts by a garage that is VAT registered.
Personally i would always keep a car dealer serviced while it is under warranty.
You spent thousands on the car, is it really worth the risk of future warranty problems for the sake of saving £50 or whatever ?
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IIRC ( I do not have the service book to hand) the Fiat Panda warranty is time, not mileage based......
However changing oil and and filter is probably worthwhile after 12 months even without any significant mileage..
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ERROR
>>>is time, not mileage based..<<
I meant to say time not mileage based!!!!!!!
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ERROR ERROR
>>>is time, not mileage based..<<
I meant to say mileage based not time!!!!!!!
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What is actually done for the £172? What do you get "extra", e.g. an experienced chap looking at the thing who may pick up on something? When the warranty expires, what extra do you get by having a "full service history"?
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My finance agreement says it must have full service history too or I can be penalised if I wanted to hand it back.
Should be more than an oil change they will check for any updates, recalls, check brakes (only visible ones), suspension, steering basically what a full service is. The first service won't touch the fluids other than the oil unless they are low.
On a low mileage car though it is just basically an oil change :(
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It is a gamble whether or not to keep the service history within the dealer network. A colleague has just had the throttle body go on her 4 year old Mitsubishi Colt. She'd had the four year service done by Kwik Fit. Mitsubishi refused to consider a goodwill gesture towards the cost of replacing the throttle body as the service history wasn't fully through the Mitsubishi dealer network. She had to bear the full £ 250 herself.
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How can you expect goodwill if you go outside the dealer network?
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She had to bear the full £250 herself.
>>
Which is probably how much it would have cost her to have a dealer service, above the KF price.
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Hell will freeze over before Kwik Fit ever get to service my car !!!
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A curious attitude. Some KFs will be better than main dealers, some will be worse.
It's just people in different uniforms.
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>> Mitsubishi refused to
>> consider a goodwill gesture towards the cost of replacing the throttle body as the service
>> history wasn't fully through the Mitsubishi dealer network. She had to bear the full £
>> 250 herself.
>>
They wouldn't have paid anyway. They're terrible for things like that.
The one good thing that Mitsubishi do is that dealer servicing extends the pan-European breakdown and recovery cover - but you have to ask for it, it's not freely offered. Quite a few makes do now - we have 4 cars and 3 of them, Mitsubishi, Merc and Honda and all do this. Only the VW doesn't - in fact its breakdown cover stops after a year.
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£172 for an oil change? Wow, a first service on my car is £110 at main dealer - Rattle you sure you didnt buy an Audi and forget to tell us?
Thats insane money, ring around again anyone within 15-20 miles, you should be able to shave £50-60 off that which makes another few miles of petrol insignificant. A 30 mile round trip is less than £5 in petrol.
Dont get yourself in a lather about driving a few more miles, that car needs it!
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£188 for the C5's first service. First dealer wanted £250, second £225 and third was £188 - worth the three phonecalls.
As it also happens the cheapest has a very good reputation - long established ex Rover dealer, and many of the staff have been there for years
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When our Sirion was up for I think its 3rdd service, I rang three dealers - one 5 miles away, one 15, the other 18 miles.
First was £211, second was £212, third was £165. For that saving I could have driven a 250 mile round trip an still had change!
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The disadvantage of taking it a long away away is I have to book the entire day or at least afternoon off. If I am at my local dealer (still 7 city miles away) I can at least do some work.
I will phone round tomorrow and see if I can get any where, what is the chance of my original dealer knocking anything of that £172 if I say I have found it cheaper?
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Get a loan car, any good dealer will have them, no need to use an entire day up. Drop your car at 8am, collect at 5. Simples.
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3300 miles Rats!!
You would have been cheaper just taking taxis!
Thats about 60 miles a week!
I bet your wee car dreams every night of being taken on a good drive, maybe tomorrow will be the day Ian lets me stretch my legs........
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It wouldn't be cheaper to use taxis at all as most my essential car journeys are less than 3-4 miles. a 4 mile taxi journey here is £10, do that return that is £20. There is also the fact I have to rely on other people and the entire point of having a car is so I don't have to do that.
I didn't use much until October but I do use a lot more now, typical do around 70-80 miles a week now.
That mileage is actually quite typical on the Panda forum, one guy on there has done just 2500 in his first year. My mates Panda (09 plate) was on 4000 by its first service.
Remember I am not working in an office each day, I am transporting computer equipment through South Manchester.
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BobbyG you might be right about taking taxis. My wife's car is now not used much due to working locally again. So in 8.5 years it's only done about 25000. But my wife cycles to work most days!
When it was cold the power steering light was coming on.... I figured it was a lowish battery charge due to driving locally and using lights, heater, heated rear window etc. A blast on the motorways seemed to fix that.
If Rattle keeps to his 3300 miles per annum over say four years that's a total of 13,200. With insurance, fuel, servicing and finance costs that's probably going to be a pound a mile!
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Even a £1 per mile is far cheaper than taxis though :).
From May 2011 to May 2012 I suspect I will be doing between 4000-5000 miles as I am using it a lot more than I was the first few months I have had it. Your wife was probably doing extremely low mileage.
The insurance is the big problem but there is not much I can do about that.
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I am surprised insurance is very high when over 25 - although I did do a quote for me with the equivalent of a good no claims bonus but for a nice car it was quite a bit. My wife's car is around £240ish pa insurance.
But she does do very low mileage. Probably could do without the car but we bought it with 2 miles on the clock in 2001 so it's been fairly cheap. Ignoring fuel it's probably cost 30 pence per mile so far (this is adding purchase price, insurance, MOTs, road tax, new exhaust, etc. over 85 years). And ignores the fact it might still be worth something.
When we got it we had it serviced at the FIAT dealer to keep the warranty going. They fixed a leak on the sunroof under warranty. I bet they would have tried getting out of that (but it was a sunroof!). We don't get it serviced every year now though.
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Manchester post code - biggest problem
Insurance for business use - high risk
Male
Only been driving for 2.5 years - high risk.
Even the Fiesta costs £400 a year to insure, although that is a group 5 (old style) car so that would be about group 13 now compared to my group 1 Panda.
I suspect the incident with my Corsa when my window was smashed isn't helping with the insurance premiums. I wish I hadn't bothered reporting it to the police now as that is two extra crime numbers (makes it more expensive to insure).
About 20% of the insurance cost is APR too.
I do plan to keep the car long term like your wife so in the long run it should be a cheap car.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Thu 14 Apr 11 at 18:13
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>> The disadvantage of taking it a long away away is I have to book the
>> entire day or at least afternoon off. If I am at my local dealer (still
>> 7 city miles away) I can at least do some work.
>>
Do what I do - drop off between 5 and 6, collect courtesy car and collect same time next day.
Has little impact on my day - just means I leave work and head to the dealers rather than home
Last edited by: mikeyb on Thu 14 Apr 11 at 17:56
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Yeah I know all the rules but I do want to keep it within the FIAT network at least until the the first MOT. After that I will buy the genuine FIAT parts and get an indie to all the servicing :).
For the sake of a quid I will keep it in the network, but I do want to try and get the price down within the dealer network if that makes sense?
I should have checked the first service cost before I bought it, but that is the last thing you think of on a car like this.
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I always got my Seat serviced at the supplying dealer and over the course of the 3 year warranty I got a new radio unit, 3 new alloys, a DMF clutch replacement all covered under warranty without any quibble whatosever.
Even now my car is in its 4th year, I have an aftermarket warranty but still got it serviced at the dealer.
Dealer is handy, I trust them ( though many people don't) and I don't think their prices are too much of a rip off.
I prefer to get my car serviced by people who are servicing SEATS all day long, who will know how to remove a bit of trim or have experienced a similar problem before. Yes I know as a VAG car it could go to any of these dealers as the engines will be the same.
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>> I prefer to get my car serviced by people who are servicing SEATS all day long...
Although not my car I make sure it goes to Mazda. The lease company tries to use anyone but a main dealer. I point out things like (a) it needs the right Mazda spec oil to deal with diesel diluting it, (b) the car needs the ECU resetting when oil changed so the DPF works right, etc. I usually win.
On the one hand it's not my car so why care. But this car will go on to be a good second hand car in October and it's been really comfy and reasonably reliable. Nothing mechanical or electrical gone wrong unlike the previous Mondeo and the Passat before that. So it will probably be at an auction in Manchester late October.
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>> I do plan to keep the car long term like your wife so in the long run it should be a cheap car.
The Seicento has been very good to be honest. When I took it for a spin on the motorway recently though I didn't like it at speed. But I'm used to something a bit more powerful, refined and BIGGER.
If I were you I'd take it to FIAT for now. It's a bit more but there's no way they can wiggle out of warranty claims. And you're playing it safe with the finance agreement etc. In the scheme of things it's not that much really. I could spend £80 filling my car with diesel!
Clutch cable on the Seicento replaced today. Decided it was better done by a garage so used one we know well (friends of the family sort of).... good price and they not only collected the car today.... it was fixed 6 hours later!
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7 yr main service @ toyota garage on IS 200 - genuine Lexus parts inc Brake Fluid change - £175..................looks good value cpmpared to an oil change costing £170+
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But they always do deals for older cars because they are more likely to be able to sell your parts :D. It would be very difficult for a dealer to try and sell me new brake pads and discs on a 3000 mile car.
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"It would be very difficult for a dealer to try and sell me new brake pads and discs on a 3000 mile car."
Sounds like we need to start a book on that. It's tough on brakes, you know, driving round the city in that tiny car....!
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Never know, could need changing, just to be extra safe, they could go shiny just standing around...
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I live in the city and mainly only do city driving, the brakes do get used a hell of a lot although no heavy breaking. The discs/pads are perfectly fine, I've checked them myself.
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Must have been the last of the RHD cable FIATs. For some reason they are all hydraulic now but the LHDs are cable.
The Panda is quite a bit more fined at speed than the Sciento but I think your wife will have the same engine I have (if its 1.1 8v) and I can imagine that will take some getting used to if you're used to more power.
Very relaxed and quite at 70mph though.
I've saved the money up in a tin anyway so I won't miss it but I can think of a lot of nicer things to spend £172 on!.
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Yes it's a 1.1 litre engine Rattle. Not much go compared to a 143PS diesel with 360Nm torque! And brakes not much good either. In fact doing about 60mph on the motorway it didn't feel brilliant.... which is why my next car will be a bigger one.
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They know how to charge up your way Rattie, they're taking the P.
Hilux was about £170 first service, and that needed 7.5 litres engine oil.
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I know they are, but I do want to keep it in the dealer network, if they all take the P I have little choice but to pay it.
I am guessing the one in Warrington might be a bit cheaper but will call round tomorrow.
My mates been quoted £190 his service at his local dealer.
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Our local Audi dealer (South Coast) charges us a lot less than that an oil service for the A3 or the A4, including a courtesy car or collection/delivery. In fact somewhat annoyingly shortly after taking delivery of the A3 Audi offered a 3 year/50k miles service pack for £250!
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I had the same dilemma with the Scenic when it came to service time and it was still under warranty. In the end, I swallowed it and paid £100 more than an indie quoted for the local main dealer to service it.
A few weeks out of warranty, the passenger side electric window regulator broke. This was a £300 job (£200 part, plus labour). Renault sorted it as a goodwill gesture on account of the car having a full main dealer history.
OK I could have got it done cheaper, by buying a pattern part and fitting it myself (a major faff of a job) but in the end, I got the job done for nothing and depending on which way you look at it, ended up saving half the cost of the service as well had I had to stump up for even the cheapest repair. And all for a simple phone call.
Much as I don't like main dealers, and my sister's experience with a Vauxhall dealer this week has only reinforced it, I would always keep in the dealer network during the warranty period.
Last edited by: DP on Thu 14 Apr 11 at 21:25
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>>For the sake of a quid I will keep it in the network>>
No contest then...:-))
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coincidently i paid £172 for a full service on a montego exactly 20 years ago
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For reference, in July last year ago my eldest's Panda - which is the twin of Rattle's, but almost a year older - had its first service at the FIAT dealer who supplied it :
low mile service - £80.05
Shell helix Ultra synthetic - £29.97
Oil filter - £9.41
brake cleaner - £2.09
white grease - £1.88
total £123.40
VAT (as it was then) £21.60
to pay £145.00
There was an observation that the front brake pads were about 5% worn (I suppose they had to justify the brake cleaner) and that there was 6mm tread on all tyres.
Costs have risen over the year, and VAT is up a bit too....
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£172!!!!
I thought £113 for the first service on the Ceed was a bit steep for an oil change and a checkover. (Main Dealer).
Last edited by: Old Navy on Fri 15 Apr 11 at 14:40
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...to pay £145.00...
I thought I must be missing something, but £172 for an annual service at a main dealer doesn't seem that high.
The cost of consumables for small cars is almost as much as for big ones.
And labour charges are the same.
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>>I thought I must be missing something, but £172 for an annual service at a main dealer doesn't seem that high.<<
An annual service cost varies depending on the service items. This is a first service glorified oil and filter change. At the most its an hours work by a competant garage so assuming inc VAT the oil, filter and consumables come to £60, thats £110 for labour - my local Suzuki dealer charges £65 ph inc VAT as does our local Ford dealer.
You may like to be mugged at a main dealer, but one cant on a moral basis, encourage Rattle to unless he wants to.
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>> An annual service cost varies depending on the service items. This is a first service
>> glorified oil and filter change. At the most its an hours work by a competant
>> garage so assuming.....
>>
>>
Last years figures for the same car and same service (different part of the UK) copied from the actual bill a few posts above.
Why assume?
You could argue that the plastic palace and its staff is costing a lot to keep going, that the filter is dear for what it cost to make, and why they charge full whack for the oil when they get it bulk... but it's a business attempting to make some money when all is said and done.
Anyway, if Rattle's chariot is on contract, it's probably best to stick with the dealer stamps for the duration.
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Not on contract but its one of them schemes where I can either hand the car back or pay a small amount to keep the car. The final payment is £1800 and I am saving that, so I will be car loan free in three years time and end up with a four year old car :).
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>>so I will be car loan free in three years time and end up with a four year old car :).
Which should last you another six years.
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That is the plan :).
I am resisting any temptation to get bored :). If my dads Fiesta can last 14-15 years I don't see why a more simple Panda can't.
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It will be down to the quality of the steel and its rustproofing.
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>> It will be down to the quality of the steel and its rustproofing.
>>
and availability of parts, when needed.
for instance, isn't there a problem getting (new) windscreens for Peugeot 205's ? Or am I making it up, again....
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Its all standard FIAT parts bin anyway, engine is from 1984 (FIRE), most the trim and other bits are also used by the 500 and Ka which will be sold for many more years to come so I don't think there will be much of an issue getting parts in the medium long term.
Realistically though I can't see me still having it by the time I am 40.
I bet you can still get 205 parts very easily too.
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>>That is the plan :).
A piece of cake, Rattle. I got 14 years out of an Austin Maxi - now that was a challenge.
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I am sure the Pa55200nda is better rust proofed than the Fiesta. The Fiesta is now so rusty you can ALMOST see daylight through the floor but its not near "prescribed areas" so it still passes the MOT.
I really do think August's will be its last though as the rear wheel arch has severe internal rusting and I think it will also fail on the sills again.
Still if all it needs each year is £150 of welding its a very cheap car (all the brakes, suspension etc have already been replaced in our ownership). Ironically its still on the original shocks and springs but it eats wishbones.
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Apart from the Fiesta I think the oldest car my dad has run is 1956 Morris Minor he scrapped in 1973.
The newest was a 2 year old Punto which he sadly wrote off.
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What you need is a tradesman's delivery bike. tradesmansbike.wordpress.com/
Last edited by: L'escargot on Fri 15 Apr 11 at 20:32
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£172 for the first service - Crankcase
