We have a Honda Civic (diesel) that in the next couple of months will be outside its warranty period.

To date its always had a main dealer service.

This will be the third year of us owning the car.

Our next service, due imminently, is a 75k service – the car has only done 56k but is 6 years old.

Our local Honda dealer has quoted £470* for the service which is a major one (transmission,brake fluids, all filters etc)

Somewhat a gasp I called around.

Unsurprisingly the national type Autocenters ranged from £250 – £350 for a “to manufacturer service”.

Am I just paying for it being a dealer service or is ther additional (read hidden) value using the main dealer?

I need convincing!

*They have offered this years and next years service for £505 saving £165 but for the purpose of the above we’ll ignore this bit!

For me i could get a £55 service on the Mondeo, or a £199 at Ford dealer… or indeed a £230 at Ford dealer.

The Ford dealer did indeed change more than the £55 bloke would have… but not much….

The question is… “all them ticks on the paperwork….” were they actually checked… or just the boxes ticked lol.

If you believe they checked everything they ticked… the £199 was worth it…

The £55 one was basically an oil change and a stamp in the book.

Hmmm.

To be honest the car was bought with the intention of keeping it rather than selling in X many years. So the longer its with us the better 😆

My (unsubstantiated) fear is that a national type Autocenter has to be of-fey with squillions of cars rather than the set nuances of a few, hence the ticked box and stamped service book is only good if its been done right.

Just had another quote from a main dealer in another county …. £513 for the same service!

find a honda specialist and try them.

i wouldnt put my car into a dealer unless i knew them very well and i wouldnt stick it into a national/kwik fit style chain – even if i did know them…..

I find some of the lower quotes hard to believe as I was of the understanding the oil alone was about £60 of the charge. 🙁

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Go to a good local independent. If they’re run by someone in a club with a common interest is normally handy. Some places listed on the ‘Good Garage’ guide are actually quite good.

As trail rat said, Honda Specialist. If not a local garage with a good reputation.
Main dealers have xxx overheads/ costs etc so will always be more expensive.

What may be worth noting however, is that if you have a fully stamped main dealer history and say 12 months later a major fault occurs, then the dealer or Honda may be more sympathetic with good will repairs. This happened to a friend of mine who had an Audi TT and the timing chain went costing £££££, full history but way out of warranty. Audi agreed to cover 2/3 parts and labour costs( nearly £4k) .. Worth bearing in mind.

Good oil is fairly pricey isn’t it. However, I just paid £200 for a service on a BMW including oil change, brake fluid air filter and 7 litres of oil at 9.95 per litre.

I thought that was pretty good, would have been double that at main dealer (obviously I could save almost £100 by doing it myself)

I’d be wary of services for £60, I bet the oil would be pretty poor!

I know nothing about your car but…

I fully understand keeping a car for as long as possible, I buy a car about 3-4 years old and keep it until it dies doing a basic service every 6K or so.

The Dealers get a premium payment because their stamp gives extra value to your car and stops any argument over a warranty (I know in theory you can get your car serviced anywhere and it’s still in warranty if the service intervals are met, excluding probably bodywork), I’d never use one once out of the warranty period. A garage stamp just shows regular intent to have the car serviced and I don’t actually know of anyone that checks the reputation of the garage that has stamped the logbook. I know of one fella took his car to a place regular as clockwork and everything was stamped as should be. I took a look under the bonnet after an emission fail on the MOT to find the airfilter was black and ripped through and the oil filter was rusted in place – mechanic had just been stamping the book and taking the cash. A basic service and the car passed the re-test.

For you, you want a regular car working well at a sensible price, which means a specialist/good local garage.

For me, I got into doing a basic service on a regular basis, it takes less than 90 mins to flush the old oil properly and drain from the sump (as opposed to sucked out by a garage from the dipstick), swop out the air, oil and fuel filter and bleed brakes/do pads if required. And this is without a garage on the side of the road, total cost is less than 100 yoyos, although I have probably spent 100 on the bits of equipment that have lasted me over 10 years so far (jack, axle stands, chain whip, 36mm hex and socket wrench, large box to carry it all in).

For the big stuff that I can’t do on the side of the road I go back to the good local place and get them to do whatever work is required (ie second wheel bearing because the first was a right bugger and I couldn’t be arsed going through all the buggering about again).

If you have a good deal from the dealer for this major service (timing belt/chain/tensioners included?) I’d probably go down this route as a final “treat” for the car and then chat to mates and stuff getting recommendations for a good place to take the car in the future.

Honda OEM filters will be top notch. If the dealers are as good as I hope they will also be using the good oil and other fluids and do it all properly and know how to get to bits without damaging stuff.

A cheap service may use crappy filters and low grade or the wrong oil.

I would go for an independent who specialised in Hondas or Japanese cars in general and uses genuine filters. Or see if a garage will let you buy all the bits for the service and pay them for the labour. It’s a good idea to look for a Honda forum and ask for recommendations in your area. I’d probably trust a good specialist independent than a dealer these days.

One thing to bear in mind is that most manufacturers will offer some form of goodwill if something goes wrong just after the warranty period ends. Depending on what goes wrong and how much it costs to repair they will often pay a percentage towards the repair.
If you don’t have a full dealer service history, they won’t offer any goodwill payment towards repairs so its worth considering.

I know people on here will say how bad main dealers are and how I’m talking rubbish but it’s my own experience from working for a couple of main dealers for a good few years. I’ve seen people save thousands with the goodwill payment on cars outside of the warranty period.

and 7 litres of oil at 9.95 per litre.

Do you want to buy some magic beans ? 😉

Ask for a loyalty discount from your main dealer. They often have a lot of room to discount the parts or labour for private customers. Audi give me about 20%. As above dealer service history does matter if things go wrong out of warranty. Just had the clutch pedal & master cylinder replaced on mine and because FASH received 1/3rd off the bill, despite over 100k.
Might be worth a quick search on Eurocarparts to check how much the actual parts would cost you to purchase might get a shock how cheap oil & filters are. Then if you decide just find a recommended specialist to do the work & put the money you save aside if anything does ever go wrong?

and 7 litres of oil at 9.95 per litre.

Do you want to buy some magic beans?

That does seem rather a lot. Even the dubiously-marketed magical engine refresher stuff like Amsoil and Royal Purple doesn’t come in at that kind of price…

That does seem rather a lot. Even the dubiously-marketed magical engine refresher stuff like Amsoil and Royal Purple doesn’t come in at that kind of price…

Engine oil for diesels though is dearer than that for petrol engine cars. My V8 petrol took twice as much oil as my wife’s 4-cyl diesel, and mine used Mobil-1. My basic service (oil and filter) was still cheaper.

I’ve got the same engine as you in an Accord. If you get it serviced at any garage there are two things you need to check 100% on.

1. The oil used is needs to be fully synthetic 0w-30. This isn’t the cheapest or most common oil around so does cost a bit. However if you use different oil it can cause cam chain wear issues.
2. The fuel filter needs to be an original Honda one. Even one from Euro Car parts or similar can cause issues. Apparently they don’t allow enough fuel to flow which can stop it revving past 3000 rpm cleanly.

I do my own servicing on my car and the amount it saves is loads. Obviously not everyone wants to go down this route. But even if you don’t you can get some service kits of ebay from Honda dealers. e.g. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/GENUINE-HONDA-CIVIC-DIESEL-SERVICE-KIT-/181141047314 for £65 That way you know you are getting the correct parts. You can then get an independent garage to fit these to save some cash. Obviously fluids may not be worth it due to postage costs.

All my info comes from the typeaccord website. I’m sure the Civinfo website has a similar glut of information.