Any consequences of having just over a year between car services?

[CarQuestion]

Hi, I know this probably sounds like I'm overthinking but - I get my car MOT'd and serviced every year (together) - the MOT anniversary is 'preserved' (say it's June 15th) if you do it in the month leading up to the anniversary date but the car's computer wants me to do a service by exactly one year after the last one.

So e.g. if last year's MOT and service was 1 June, MOT date is still June 15th but service anniversary keeps creeping back.

I know servicing is entirely optional but obviously it's stored on the car's computer and keeps saying 'Service due in X days'. I can't get a slot at the garage to do both until about 1 week after the service anniversary from last year, so it'll be about a year and a week between services.

1 - does this matter if I come to sell the car - full service history etc?
2 - I have a warranty that's based on me getting the car serviced annually, would this be invalidated if it's just over a year?

Any other consequences I haven't thought of?

I've had the car about 8 years now and this hasn't really come up before as I've always gotten them a bit in advance but clearly the service 'date' is only ever going to go further backwards!

Bumping...

Not a problem. The service record will show that it has been serviced every year (eg 2020, 2021, 2022 etc) so as long as it doesn't jump from 2022 to 2024 you'll be fine.

Thanks very much!

It will just tell you a service is due until it’s serviced.
if it’s passed its MOT then there is nothing wrong with it. If you are doing both together then a weeks slippage is perfectly acceptable. People were given 6 months grace during Covid, not that many of us were going anywhere.

My car manufacturer recommended a service after so many miles ( eg 10k) . The service reminder comes on 1 calendar year after the previous one regardless of the miles done between. I was driving round with the reminder on for months before I got the service done.

It may be compulsory to have them carried out within a timescale as part of a lease or hp agreement.

It really doesn't matter if it's a few weeks out. Very few garages are going to have dates at exactly the right time you need them!

You’re lucky. Inisually get mine serviced and MoT at the same time but the last 2 years my service light has come on about 6 weeks before it was due and I ended up having to get it serviced earlier and then MOT’d later. I was worried that it would break down. It was the service light and a couple of others so now I’m a few months between. Also when I went for my MOT this time around I assumed as I’d had my service and spent a fortune that it would breeze through MOT but then it needed further work - tyres and break pads

I was told by mine that if I went past a year it would invalidate the warranty. My car is about 6 years old but there’s some extended warranty deal if servicing is done within each year anniversary with a registered dealer/centre.

if it’s passed its MOT then there is nothing wrong with it.

It doesn’t mean that at all, the MOT checks the absolute bare minimum of roadworthiness. There can still be plenty wrong with it and pass, many things aren’t testable and for those that are the bar is set very low (outwith those that are either working or not like a headlight bulb).

OP it won’t make a difference at all, as long as it’s not months and tens of thousands of miles overdue.

Something slightly fishy there. The garage that serviced it would’ve loved to upsell you a set of brake pads as it’s an easy high margin job. To fail an MOT they have to be <1.5mm, so completely shagged. I’m guessing these were two separate garages? The MOT one possibly ripped you off. As for the tyres, you should be checking them every week yourself anyway so they shouldn’t come as a surprise.

You'd be surprised how little is done/checked at a service. It's typically nothing more than changing the oil/air filter and a visually quick "look around". A basic service is an hour of labour and most of that is the oil/filter change. Don't expect much else. An MOT is a much more thorough check, but even that is pretty basic and just covers a basic level of roadworthiness. Not surprising that a car can fail an MOT immediately after a service - they're two different things.

Warranties seem to allow leeway of up to a month from the anniversary due date, that's certainly the case with the two cars we've got at the moment.

You can usually Google for a way to clear the "service due" warnings on the dashboard if they annoy you. Usually just a matter of pressing the end of the lighting/wiper arm for the requisite number of seconds.

We've learned the hard way (over 40 years of car ownership) not to rely on regular servicing nor MOTs to check all is well with a car. Plenty of things you can check yourself. Sadly we had to get rid of a brilliant car at 10 years old, ultra low mileage, bought new, always sailed through it's MOT, nothing needed except a set of new tyres, spark plugs and brake pads. What we didn't realise, and was never picked up on yearly services, was severe water ingress to electrics, in particular, the heating system, blower fan, etc. Apparently, it's a known issue with that make/model of car for the windscreen seal to fail, causing water to run downwards into the engine bay, where directly under the centre of the windscreen is the air inlet for the heater system, so when it rains, water just pours into the heating system. The insulation at the back of the engine compartment was absolutely wringing wetk and almost completely disintegrated. No one said a word! Firstly the blower fan failed costing nearly a thousand pounds, A year after that, the entire heating control system failed, estimated cost two thousand pounds. Dealership still never mentioned the water ingress that was causing it. It was only after googling that we discovered it was a well known issue! When we looked at the seal, it was blatantly obvious it had failed as there was literally a gap of a few millimeters between it and the windscreen. Complained to the dealership, but they were having none of it, saying that it wasn't on the official "tick list" of things to be checked at the service which we apparently agreed to when booking a service. Apparently it's never a "check everything" type of thing and was our fault for not asking them to check the seal!!

Ever since that, we're back to checking a lot of things ourselves regularly. OH always used to do basic stuff on his cars when he was young and driving old bangers, but over the years, life gets in the way (careers, kids etc), so we kind of forget about the cars and just relied on annual garage services. Never again! We're well back into checking things ourselves and doing more ourselves again.

That's terrible @taxguru !
Thanks all, the warranty people said "there is some leeway but we recommend keeping to the manufacturer's recommendations ie every 12 months/ however many miles". I can't think of any leeway that would be less than a few days so should be fine.

A week is not going to be a problem on history. As far as warranty is concerned, if it's a manufacturer warranty they allow a degree of overdueness both in days and mileage without invalidating the cover, same would be for an aftermarket warranty but they rarely cover anything anyway.
From a warranty administrator in the motor trade

I've only ever had a service done on one car, don't see how it makes a difference really. I get an MOT done and do regular maintenance/upkeep.

What warranty is still valid when the car is over 8 years old anyway?

(I've never had a car younger than 8 years old)

Yeah I guess it's an after market warranty, car was not new when I bought it. Tbh it has paid for a few things but nowhere near the cost of what I paid... yet! Probably wouldn't bother in future but it gave me peace of mind.

I have company cars and my last one I called to book a month or more in advance and still had to wait ages. It was about 3k over by the time they did it and it was the first service. Even in that instance there is no comeback.

I would recommend you service your car and MOT at alternate 6 month intervals so you never go too long without someone looking at it.

Remember an MOT just means it's roadworthy and a service is the real basics of whether your cars ok so you should do your own regular checks.

i'm skipping every other year these days, i'm doing vastly reduced miles and figured distance is more important than timescale, although i may be wrong knowing next to nothing about modern cars

I don't know the correct answer to this. I'm told officially timespan is equally important, that's why the schedule will be x miles or x months, whichever comes soonest

I service my cars religiously. My personal cars have always had some bloody problem despite my love and attention. DH drives about a mile a year and only MOTs his car, nothing else (doesn't even clean it) and his garage have said there is no point servicing as he has not done enough miles - they've said this for the last two years, maybe three. He never has car trouble either so I can tell him he needs to service til I'm blue in the face. He sees zero benefit.

Your "warranty" is junk, don't worry about that. Third party warranties won't pay for anything expensive, if at all.

Just get both done together. Nobody buying an eight or nine year old car is going to care about the date of the service.

You need to check the terms and wording of your warranty to see if it would make any difference to that.

I usually service every 18-24m because I do very low mileage. My car doesn't seem to mind.

As a buyer I would be impressed it was serviced yearly, wouldn’t worry about one being less than 365 after another.

as for warrantee you have to check the fine print. I wouldn’t risk invalidating it.

I don't think it's an issue if you're within the mileage still. The only exception to this is if the vehicle is within a manufacturers warranty or car dealers warranty. They do allow some leeway but not much. I don't know about other manufacturers but my Ford is within manufacturers warranty and they allow you to go over by a month is 1000 miles before you void the manufacturers warranty.

Not servicing a car at all of course has lots of negatives. I work at a motor dealers, we currently have a 2018 beautiful diesel Mini in and the owner has never serviced it and just done lots of short journeys with no maintenance at all. She's caused about £2000 damage and the car requires a new turbo as well as a load of other parts replacing. This is all due to neglect. And that's £2000 at cost as she's a friend!

But no, I wouldn't worry about it being a few weeks late.

For the previous posters saying warranties aren't worth it, I work at a dealers who fund our own warranty 'pot'. We have just paid over £15,000 and wiped that fund out completely having to put a brand new engine in a Defender that's less than 4 years old with full Land Rover service history. So yeah, that customer is glad they had a warranty!! Most warranties have an individual claim limit (which is what I would check before purchasing) but usually the overall claim limit is up to the value of the car. As with anything there are some good companies about and sone atrocious ones.

I'm talking about something like an RAC warranty, or a "manufacturer extended warranty". You obviously have done your own bespoke one.

Big dose of brave pills required for self funding warranty on JLR products! 🤣