Are official franchised dealers worth the extra for a seven year old car?

[jessicare]

My car, a 7 year old Peugeot, needs a service and MOT.

Since buying it 5 or so years ago I have taken it to the Peugeot garage where we bought it for its servicing needs. It was near my place of work so could drop it off in the morning, pick up in the evening, and initially we had a special offer on the annual service and my reasoning was that as they dealt with Peugeots all the time they would know what they are doing.

Now I have changed work location so the garage is no longer convenient location-wise and so I am tempted to take it somehwere else. The usual garage chains - Formula One Autocentre, Kwikfit, Mr Clutch etc are convenient for where we live plus one or two independents.

So my question is what do I lose by not taking it to the official place? Is it worth the extra cost (and inconvenience)?

Depends on how long you are keeping it for and how inconvenient it would be for you if it were to break down.

Franchised dealers are (slightly) more expensive but they will be experts in your vehicle. They will use genuine parts and the correct oil. And they employ proper mechanics.

Kwik Fit, and other such places are a gamble. They are not mechanics, just fitters, so they can't actually fix anything, just replace whatever is broken. They use the same oil for every vehicle (they say they have specific oils, they don't, its all from the same industrial sized barrel. This isn't usually a problem since most people who use those places have older cars and don't question why the car is making a funny noise after a few "cheap" services. They just think it's because the car is old, not that the wrong oil has damaged their engine.

If you need the car and want to keep it for a few more years, use the franchise.

If you don't care and just need something to get you through the next 12 months, use the quick lube place.

There is a middle ground between franchise dealer garages and the likes of kwik fit. Both these will have someone knowledgable somewhere but the actual work is done by really quite inexperienced people who are trained in 'packages'.

My car is serviced by an independent, who is authorised by the manufacturers so that he has the right kit to interact with the on board monitoring systems that are all computers these days.

He is also very knowledgable about cars. Knows what preventative servicing to do, when to get an expensive part and when reconditioned will do.

Been using g him for years, ever since I bought a new car which came with three years free servicing, for which I took it to the original dealer. That ran out, the car needed a service and mot at three years and they gave me a massive list of things needing doing, which they said would cost thousands of pounds.

One element I remember was that the remote headlight adjustment did not work. They proposed to replace the whole headlight unit and all the cabling back to the dash board, some two thousand pounds. And a good few more less easy to remember.

I tried the garage in our village. Found a fellow motor enthusiast who was authorised by the manufacturers. He costs a fraction of the price of the manufacturers franchised dealer

Instead of replacing the headlight unit and all the cables, he suggested we use an Allen key to adjust the headlight if it needed adjusting (it didn't) and continued through the list.

Used him ever since, going on for eighteen years now.

Hope you find someone good, too.

Meant to say, just to be absolutely clear, find an independent authorised by the manufacturer

So my question is what do I lose by not taking it to the official place? Is it worth the extra cost (and inconvenience)

You have nothing to lose. You might even get better service. That will almost certainly be cheaper.

We use an independent, in walking distance so we can drop cars off, walk home and go back for them later.

They've always been very fair and honest with us in terms of what work needs doing, even though DP is one of those who does some work himself, so often either does them out of work, or starts something himself that he then finds is beyond his capability/available tools, so takes his car back half done for them to finish off - he's the reason a lot of garages have one of those signs that say Cost of job - X, Cost of job if you tried to fix it yourself first 2X etc.

They have some sort of manual that lists the service schedules for all cars, so they're doing the same work, just often at a cheaper hourly rate because you're not paying for a big flash showroom or free coffee (a lot of the profit in new car sales in with the add ons, not the cars).

If you can find a good independent garage to use, it's really worthwhile, takes a lot of stress out of car ownership.