Yes sir, it will be fully serviced when you collect it..

[Welly]

When I bought her indoors Astra in April 08 they said it would be fully serviced and duely filled out a sheet for me explaining it has new Spark Plugs, Pollen filter etc etc. sure enough when I fetched it the oil was clean and the oil filter looked new.

Yesterday we found that it had never been fitted with spark plugs or the pollen filter etc

I know we would all just say "what do you expect" etc but doesn't it just show you how these large motor traders/dealers can rip you off claiming to do work they haven't.

I'm supposed to get my local friendly Volvo dealer to service my car in order to comply with the "warrenty" but I'm f*cked if I'm going to let them near it - I just have no faith at all. I will let my own garage who I trust do it with genuine parts and they can all argue about it as and when.

Also we discovered that Kwik Fit had murdered up one of the Astra security wheel nuts requiring two people to hold the security socket with a third person standing on the end of a sodding great bar (try doing that on your own).

I do a really good job and I'd hate to think I'd let someone down or was otherwise ripping them off so I get really pissed off with poor service in this country nobody seems to give a sh*t and everyone wants to blame someone else for everything

Grrrrrrr...

[mjb]

Should see the state of my coupe with full main dealer service history... it probably wouldn't be anywhere near so bad now if it had actually been serviced once in its life...

[Welly]

Yes, sadly it's horribly overated having a main dealer history to the point where you might avoid buying the thing

[teamster1975]

I remember my vulva 440's first service, £575!!!! Needless to say I never went to a dealer again

[Welly]

You had a Volvo?

Ooooo - we are bessy mates now

[teamster1975]

I loved that car, it served me well for 3 years!
L164 DPE

[steve_earwig]

Ah, another Victor Volvo

I was talking to my buddy Goran about this one and complained that there's a lot of this sort of thing goers on "back home", he said a couple of years back he had a guy come in the shop 'cos he had an oil level warning come up on an almost new C5. Seem the guy was just coming back from having it serviced by Citroen in ZG, so Goran pulled the dipstick and there was just a drip of jet black oil on the end of the stick...

[jasper5]

Main dealers are their own worst enemy, they do not have good enough quality control.

When I worked as Foreman Mechanic in a dealership, we had a first class quality control system....the mechanic had to check and sign off an apprentice's work, I had to check the mechanic's work, then my boss road tested every car that had been repaired or serviced, no car left the forecourt without the boss giving it the ok. Woe betide me if any job hadn't been done after I'd signed it off!

In my case, my customers can stand and watch their car being fixed or serviced, if they want to.As i'm the only person doing the job, customers get personal attention.

I love giving quotes to people after they have been quoted by the dealers, their faces light up

By the way, using parts such as those made by Mahle, Fram, ADL and so on, are acceptable for servicing and warranty purposes.

Last week, I serviced a Nissan Pathfinder 4x4, I bought genuine parts, guess what? The air filter and oil filter were made by Mahle! As were the two pollen filters.

I use Mahle filters quite a lot.

[Welly]

Excellent advice Jasp's as usual.

I'd hate to think of some 17 year old working on my Volvo in the dealership and still paying top dollar for the 'pleasure' of it

Her indoors Astra had a Mahle oil filter fitted this week - I'd never seen them before but it says "long life" on it suitable for extended servicing etc.

[jasper5]

If buying filters and stuff for warranty purposes, just ask if they are covered by the "Block Exemption Rule" Mahle and Fram are covered for sure, I'm fairly sure that ADL are, but wise to check.

Block Exemption means that the manufacturers have allowed these filters to be covered for warranty.

Mazda have used Mahle filters as original equipment for many years, now Nissan are using them.

[mjb]

What's the point in a 'long life' oil filter if you're not as negligent as I was to my poor tubby? (something like 50k without an oil change )

[Welly]

I think it refers to some new petrols with 20,000 mile/2 year intervals

I still can't believe you ran yours for over 40K on the same oil/filter

[Jay]

What's the point in a 'long life' oil filter if you're not as negligent as I was to my poor tubby? (something like 50k without an oil change )

haha. my mates mum has a citroen picaso hdi, shes had it from 14k i think, now has about 105k, in all that time she has never had a service, done the oil etc, nothing, as soon as i found out, i checked the oil and it was empty!!!!! told her it needed full service with timing belt etc ASAP, she didnt seem too fused!! i just cant belive it lasted so long

[STALLED]

Best was when my parents took their Holden Calais to get serviced...

Anyways - it got to 5pm and Dad was wondering where his car was. Ended up giving them a call - "Oh sorry Mr. Stalled Snr, your car now wont start"...

Turns out, one of the dopes in the service department left the radio and internal light on all day in the car and ran the battery flat. They wanted my folks to fork out the cash for a new one - $280 AUD which is bloody steep for a battery. Ended up telling them to jumpstart it and drove the car out of there very pissed off.

It's not the first time I have seen them do sh*t like that - When I used to drive the car (Before I got the FourOhSex) I used to have my trance/rap albums in the CD changer. Every time I would pick the car up, it was always a different CD playing - even though I left it there with the radio on! I don't want to sound like a prick but at the end of the day, I'm not paying them to go through my CD changer and pick out the music they like!

Twats.

[steve_earwig]

I presume the test drive also includes making sure the stereo works