Safe Speed Forums

What does your main dealer charge per hour? Hearm BMW charge £129. Jesus. Not sure what Honda charge, but guess it's alot. Sure they need to pay the guy (not much) and train him and build a work shop and that bosses Jag won't buy it's self.

Iteresting conversation I had at work last week. We buy preety well all our farm kit from the same main dealer. Farm kit is complex stuff to. We have a brand new combine harvester of the expensice german varitey. It had an oil leak and the dealer was sent for.

"How much do your guys charge per hour, Spike?" I asked.

"we only have one rate. It does not matter what time of day we come out or what day we come out, you pay £50/hr, put we do charge mileage."

This guys van has a shelf that runs the entire length of the inside that is just for service manuals and he will come to the field for half the price that people get charged when they take a car to the dealer.

Er.........well, I do hope that it's NOT the: ..."Capitalist system" that you're complaining of here?

Or have I got you wrong?...............

Well I do treat myself to a brew and a KitKat ! The unreasonably high dealer rates are one of the reasons I'm holding off for as long as possible in buying a more modern car. Most of the car dealers round here are charging £75 an hour or more. My dad paid £125 for a minor service on his Skoda. Not much more then a glorified oil change in my book. Admittedly he does say they treat him very well which is fair play I suppose. The reason they are getting away with it is because people will pay it. Not sure why really as the more proffesional independant garages can do as good if not better job then the main dealers. As mentioned in another thread, my neighbour is an independant car dealer who have their own workshops. He tells me they are even finding their way around jobs that you would expect to be dealer only jobs.

It's funny really as main dealers have some sort of reputation as being 'the best people to work on your car', which isn't always the truth. The mechanics that are actually doing the jobs are often no better(and sometimes worse) then the ones you find in independant garages. There is just as much "he'll never notice" in car main dealers as there is anywhere else.

Funny how you mention that argricultural dealers charge much less then car dealers as the same is true of commericial vehicle dealers. Often the labour rate is less then £50 p/hour! The main reason being that they have to compete with the independants otherwise they would get no business. I presume commercial operators are more savvy when it comes to repairs as they have to keep an eye out on the bottom line all the time and if I garage down the road will do it for half the price they will take it there.

having the dealer work on your car is all about warranties and resale value due to the magic stamp in the service book.

Nowadays I believe the law has been changed so that you can get your car serviced anywhere, and provided they follow the manufacturer's service procedure, the warranty is valid. That's my understanding, at least.

I have to say, I used to always be delighted with the service from my Honda garage, but it has gone downhill in the last couple of years, a bit too much like they're trying to extract money from their customers whereas they used to seem to put quality of service first. An example - at the last service they told me my front brake pads were about to imminently wear out and advised replacement at the service. I asked if they could quantify how much life was remaining, and they said they only had 3mm left, which would be good for perhaps 500-1000 miles. The car had done around 18k miles, so I asked them how many mm the pads have to start with. He didn't know and had to ask around. The answer eventually came back - 10mm. Hmm, I thought, so they have 30% of their life left? I make it that they should last another 5k miles! They would never have tried to pull this stunt before, I'll be looking elsewhere for future servicing.

Providing the servicing is carried out to the manufacturers recommended intervals then warranties are not affected by independant servicing. You don't even have to use genuine parts anymore. All the warrenty stipulates is that they are 'of equal quality'. With a little research you can usually find the original equipment manufacturer so you buy genuine parts at non-genuine prices. However most service items are cheap enough from the dealer anyway so thats not of major concern but other high-wear parts like pads and discs etc can give you a big saving. It is for the manufacturer of the car to prove that a non-genuine part failed and caused the repair. Most non-genuine parts manufacturers offer consequential loss protection if their part caused it. This may sound like a ball ache, but failure is very rare indeed.

I know what your saying about re-sale values though, but that is merely perception. I'm not disputing a main dealer serviced car will be worth more, but that does not mean the car itself is in any better shape. So long as it was serviced correctly and at the right intervals, it would not personally matter to me where it was done. I haven't done the maths, but perhaps the savings you make may cover the difference in resele values? I suppose it depends on the value of the car and how long you keep it. I don't know, it's just a thought.

There are other benefits actually. There are "do this while you're at it because of this and that" type notices that franchised service dealers get but Jack of all trade servicers do not. Honda call these "Technical Clarification Notices I think. I would always get newish cars dealer serviced for that reason alone.

Interesting point - I guess if you're in the habit of purchasing your car from a main dealer and trading the old one in every few years, then the main dealer might choose to hammer you on the trade in value if you've gone elsewhere for your servicing. I'd be surprised if I could save more than £300 on servicing a brand new car for the first 4 years of its life by going to an independent garage, they could easily knock far more than that off the trade in value when I come to replace it.

yes, but if your car is under warranty and you take it to the independant for servicing they're not going to replace anything under that warranty are they?

But you never said that anything needed doing on warrenty, I assumed you meant to make sure the warrenty is valid. Sorry if I got the wrong impression.

Of course they are not going to replace anything under warrenty, but then warrenty work is free and not really relevant to dealer service charges is it? If you wish for reasons of time to have warrenty and service work done at the same time then that's your choice but there is nothing to stop you having the warrenty work done then driving up the road to an independant garage. If you can't be bothered or think it's not worth the hassle then just pay the extra at the dealer - but the savings can be huge so it depends how cash rich/time poor or vice-versa you are.

Again, not too sure on how the maths stack up, I'd guess it would be more then that though, epecially if you have things like pads and discs replaced in that time.




Good point that, and if you really have only one choice of dealer then you could get hammered, but personally I'd look round for a dealer who did want my business. They still get money for warrenty work and so it would still be worth selling me a new car. Saying that you don't have to buy new/nearly new from dealers. We're lucky in that we have a Motorpoint in town. My mum's partner got an '05' Ka with a 1000 miles on for £4500. That's £2500 off list price!

Main dealers have a legal obligation to provide any information like that, and if it was sufficiantly important, and that does not just mean a safety issue, then a recall would be issued and you'd still get the work done free. If it would make anyone feel better they can ring up the dealer and ask if there are any updates or recalls outstanding, and they are obliged to tell you. Again it all comes down to whether you've got the time to save money. I fully appriciate that main delears are convienant in that respect but it does not mean that there are not perfectly acceptable alternatives that will save you significant amounts of money.

well here's a case in point. When I put my car in for its last service I complained about a rough idle. Had it been at an independent I would have had to pay for them to at least diagnose the fault. As it turned out it was a worn tappet or something and was fixed under warranty.

My last Honda Civic, which I kept for almost 4 years from new, cost me a total of around £700 for all servicing at the main dealer. The original pads never needed replacing in that time (about 36k miles). So I'm guessing I'd struggle to get the servicing done elsewhere any cheaper than half the main dealer price, certainly the maximum I could possibly save is the entire £700 cost, so it has to be between £0 - £700 saving. Having said that, the main dealer costs seem to be more now, so my current one may have more scope for savings.

Your car should not have a rough idle and so I wouldn't have asked them to diagnose the fault. I'd have taken it to the main dealer and asked them to find out what was up with it, and for them to fix it under warrenty as it would have been unlikely to have not been a warrently item. Whether you or anyone else can be bothered with that then that's your call! Some independant garages offer free collection and delivery.....

It's difficult - a rough idle could easily be caused by a spark plug which is a service item. You could get caught out paying twice if you try to separate servicing and warranty work.

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Paul Smith
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So are independent garages not permitted to do warranty work and claim the cost of parts and labour back from the manufacturer?

exactly what I thought it was...

Nope, they have to be a franchised dealer job. Manufacturers will only pay their own dealers for the work.



Yes a spark plug could have caused it, and so I'd get it serviced first(if it was due) and if that didn't solve the problem then I would take it to the dealer, as anything else should be covered under warrenty.

Another way to save money would be to bring your own parts, as you'll buy them cheaper(even from a dealer) yourself then then what the garage will charge you for them. Double check they aren't going to jack up their labour rate to compensate by getting quotes from a few places. With a bit of persuasion all motor factor and dealers will discount their 'retail' prices! They say they won't but they will. They may only knock 10-20% but they still make more as they will discount even more then that to the trade. Either that or ask someone in the motor trade to get them and so pick them up for pennies. Again, all comes down to how much hassle you can put up with, but that doesn't mean you can't siginificantly cut the cost of motoring.

Taking the example of rough idle and tappet:

Had you had it serviced at an independent, and the idle remained rough, it would not be betond legitimacy for the franchised dealer to try (unsuccessfully obviously) to replace the plugs first - and any other items that the service should have picked up (leads, points (ok I'm living in the past but you get my drift). If that cured - or even abated the problem, what then? If it didn't, but then a quick whip over the tappets does, do you want the new plugs whipped back out again and an extra 15 mins of dealer labour put on? This is going to be a mildly expensive warranty claim isn't it?