My Ford Galaxy TDCI will be a year old next month so due for it's 12 month service (I bought it privately a few months back). Local Ford dealer to me is Brunel Ford, my experiences with them have been with the sales guys a few times when I've been looking around for a car, and I've not been impressed. I'm therefore (possibly unfairly) not keen on using their workshop for servicing.

Can anyone recommend a decent dealer I can use? Ford dealer ideally, though doesn't have to be to keep within the terms of the warranty.

Cheers.

There's Winford Ford out in the Chew Valley. They've always been popular out that direction.

dd – yes I had thought of them, I'm the right side of Bristol to get to them fairly easily. Have you used their workshop, or know anyone who has?

I use the garage round the corner – Udall's…

Or HiQ on winterstoke are good too.

Oh no probs with Brunel on servicing fwiw even though it did take the 4 goes to fix the ac under warranty

Yeah, Beck's used Udalls for her Ka and we've found then to be good and reasonably priced. Interesting to hear you think Brunel are ok, maybe I should give them a chance.

No Gilo, I haven't used them. Have had a fair few clients from out that way and every Ford I saw had a Winford sticker. They seem popular…but I'm not talking from personal experience.

Brunels servicing/customer service was poor in my experience. As soon as warranty was up I went and bought the Haynes.

Masters do a lot of servicing for Ford company cars – they are based in the trading estate across the railway line just up the road from Brunel i.e. the turning before the Cumberland basin and by Strachan & Henshaw.

I got my car serviced by them – seemed quite good and reasonably cheap. A friend swears by them.

Their website is http://www.mastersgarages.co.uk/index.html

Philby – not heard of them but sound good, thanks.

Get lots of quotes, I can't remember details but I got about £150 lopped off overall for a 60k service for a Mondeo. Only reason I wanted to go to a Ford dealer was to get the tick in the box for the corrosion warranty, after which it got booked into their bodyshop to get all the rusty door sills repaired 🙂

Anyway, the Ford dealers with a rapidfit style garage were significantly cheaper than the garages with their own in-house servicing. The car came back as dirty as it went in but I guess you get what you pay for when you try and get your local Ford garage to price match a Ford Rapidfit 🙂 I had to pay a few extra quid for the corrosion check in the end anyway…but as I suspected it came out with a clean bill of health apart from a few chips, doors not checked at all despite being a known issue.

I've used these guys before for servicing/repairs/MOT
http://brookfield-garage.co.uk/default.aspx
They're an independant Ford specialist and a top bunch of blokes as well – very friendly and easy to deal with.

you're right to avoid brunel ford. they're pretty expensive and mostly employ teenage kids

firstly they fitted some brake discs incorrectly and i had a nasty juddering. fairly routine bit of work that)

then i had a problem with my clutch leaking hydraulic fluid, which they diagnosed as a faulty cylinder, and then turned out to be a leaky pipe that just needed a tighten, but their muppet mechanic replaced the whole lot without asking me!

now i use a place outside bristol (crudwell) near my work and they have been very good

my missus has always used DCL on gloucester rd who have been pretty good to her

I wouldn't use Brunel out of warranty but since that's not the case here, that's not an issue. They've got loads of offers on their servicing at the moment too.