Dealerships or independents?

Loyal Royal

Loyal Royal

Member
What is the consensus of opinion regarding using dealerships or independents for servicing.

Is it worth paying the extra costs involved to keep full Audi service history?

Has anyone ever used Fontain Motors in Iver?

Don't want to keep swapping garages - would prefer to know a good one that will look after my car for the 10yrs or so that I intend keeping her for.

Thanks for any information.
 
Ive used Fontain quite a bit over the years very good if you ask me and cheaper than a main dealer.
 
I never use a main dealer....... Unless its been for Mrs A's mini, as its got TLC. (and there CRAP):mad:

But then again i find it increasingly difficult to find someone i can really trust with the fleet:(.

Just glad i've found A2OC and Skipton 1 for Tardis !!!

SPECKS
 
HaZeL has been fully dealer serviced, just booked in for the 100K inspection service at Swindon Audi £250 including fuel filter.

The only times she has been elsewhere was to Stealth for the intercooler and to a local Audi Specialist to have the 4 gear syncro replaced.

I would suggest ringing around dealers as the price can change quite a bit £485+ Fuel filter was the highest.
 
Audi now do fixed price servicing for cars 3+years old and 2.0L and below, details from their website as follows;

Our fixed-price jobs* are:
Cam belt £349
Major service £249
Interim service £99
Brake pads £99
Brake fluid change £49


This is better than my 1.9TDi 2 year old A3 which I had to pay full price for at £330 from the dealer.

I have always had dealer service (as Portsmouth Audi is walking distance from my place of work) and the labour is usually 20% off for an 'old' car but have had some bad experiences (water hose falling off on the way home after a coolant refresh) causing breakdowns... so you dont always get what you pay for.

Just had the A2 serviced in Monks Brook motors Chandlers Ford for under £70 :D
 
Thanks Andy, I'll look after TARDIS no worries!!

One thing I'll add to this thread is that sometimes, a price can be too cheap: for instance, £70 for a service asmentioned before wouldn't buy a 5l pack of oil and the filters (diesel fuel filters are over £30 alone). In this case I'd suspect that cheap parts are being used and cheap oil too.

I can't stress enough how important genuine parts are and if you go aftermarket or skimp on the oil, then you'll rusk ruining the engine in a very short period of time.

A decent full service needn't cost £250 - they can be had for well under this, but £70 is not doable - maybe for an oil and filter change, but not a full service.

Cheers.

Mike
 
I recently got aftermarket parts, not genuine ones.

They weren't all that cheap though, say 33% cheaper than OE parts.

Fuel filter (Mann) £19.80
Oil filter (Bosch) £4.80
Pollen filter (Corteco) £6.50
Long life 5w30 VAG oil £43.70
Sump plug (Febi bilstein) £1.18

Thats rougly £80 for parts, but suppose garages have labour costs as well, so prob doable for £130 or something.

John
 
I would always use dealer servicing whilst under warranty and always use OE parts or parts made by the same manufacturer to OE spec.

However once out of warranty I go independant (Skipton!) specialist.
 
To be honest, I know some cheap non OE pattern parts can be very unreliable, hence Im careful as to which ones I buy. I only go non OE with service parts, all actual parts I get Genuine audi due to the warranty on them.

I also service my car once a year regardless, and I've done two services on it now with the same non OE service parts that I bought this time round and I have never had any problems what so ever.

John
 
To be honest, I'm not looking for a cheap job. I would always insist on genuine Audi parts - but I want to know that it is being done correctly.

I know someone who has a Mercedes (2005) which he always took to the garage down the road because it was convenient. It wasn't running very well - horrible smell of oil coming into the car. Eventually got a Mercedes specialist to look at it who promptly informed him that the engine had what they call the "black death " (something to do with the injectors - caused by overfilling oil). As you can imagine I would hate anyone to do that to my A2!!!!
 
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Today @ Manchester Audi
sump plug 1.26
Oil filter 5.55
Air filter 14.01
Oil 30.00

Total inc VAT 59.71

Not to bad from dealers
 
The other prices look right, but that oil price is either a mistake or non LongLife - I picked up some oil from there this morning and paid a lot more than that!

Cheers,

Mike
 
Hi Mike, I think I was stood behind you in the parts dept @ M/cr Audi. The guy there told me about you.The oil is Quantum longlife III 5-30 fully synthetic.
 
Ahh, you have the OLO registration A2 yes?

I'll be having a little word with our friends at Manchester Audi - I put hundreds of pounds trade their way each month and get very little in the way of discount looking at the price you've paid for the oil - you got a great deal there!!

Cheers,

Mike
 
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Yes,-bought it in December.
First impressions are very good, looking forward to many miles and years use from it as I tend to keep cars a long time.
So the oil price looks like a mistake then?

Regards
Eamonn
 
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