Just had an oil n filter change plus a minor all round check after 6,000 miles and whilst many think its overkill its peace of mind for me

£50 all in with a filter not bad value, they even stamped my book

Would anyone pay ( I think ) the £129 that Skoda quote for the same job?

A question to ask yourself is, IF you later have engine issues requiring warranty work then can you PROVE the oil change was carried out correctly and with the correct oil?

I always self service as much as possible, this way I know it has all been done correctly - however whilst it is under warranty it will go into Skoda every time (twice).

I assume that this was from a local non-franchised garage?

Longlife oil from Skoda is £10.50 / litre (for VW 507.00, not sure how much VW 505.00 for the TSi is). The Octavia takes 4.5 litres so that's £47.25 for oil, plus around £8 for the filter.

Did you supply your own oil and filter?

If not then I'm guessing most garages wouldn't bother for the approx. £10 profit they potentially made from your oil change.

For the £129 you get a pollen filter, wash and vac and diagnostics check, and the all-important Skoda stamp...

Edited 31 July, 201213 yr by silver1011

For the £129 you get a pollen filter, wash and vac and diagnostics check, and the all-important Skoda stamp...

I made damn sure mine was not washed by them!!

Not a bad thing to do as long as it is the correct oil.

I wouldn't have bothered getting the book stamped at 6,000 miles though, just get the Skoda Stamp in at the full service. There can't be any warranty queries then

Was working it out today: in Feb I paid £199 for Skoda's service package which included two services (4th & 5th), two MOTs and a £50 voucher.

The voucher drops it to about £150, If you take an MOT at £40 odd regardless of where you go, that drops it to £70, and I don't know anywhere I could get a service for £35, so i'm more than happy with keeping my stamps up!

I just had mine serviced today. This was luckily a free one but my last free one. All I had until today was just a stamp in the box and no paperwork as its been paid by VAG finance. Today I asked for copies of the previous bills just for proof, more for evidence. I did notice they put down an inspection service too? Not sure this was needed.

I did get a free bottle of screenwash and it was washed and vacced too.

Just because you pay £50 for oil over the counter doesnt mean the garage does.

I`ve seen & heard horror stories at dealers, some of the bodge jobs that come out of these places that charge over £100 an hour is **** poor imo. For that reason alone i`ll never take a car to a dealers not matter how new. I`d rather take it to a decent trusted local indi an know my car is being looked after properly & save a small fortune to boot. As long as its serviced at a VAT registered garage with genuine parts there is no issue what so ever with warranty.

Just because you pay £50 for oil over the counter doesnt mean the garage does.

I`ve seen & heard horror stories at dealers, some of the bodge jobs that come out of these places that charge over £100 an hour is **** poor imo. For that reason alone i`ll never take a car to a dealers not matter how new. I`d rather take it to a decent trusted local indi an know my car is being looked after properly & save a small fortune to boot. As long as its serviced at a VAT registered garage with genuine parts there is no issue what so ever with warranty.

Have no issue with independents, always used them if possible in the past, but a £35 service is a steal afaic!

Well the car is out of warranty ... The last service by main dealer was not done correctly yet they charged previous owner £600!

I may get the next service done at the dealer, this was just an oil change rather than do another 6,000 miles on the same syrup.

The only reason for using a dealer is for 'good will' on any future problems, which given the number of DMF, DPF, turbo, injector, ABS & Aircon issues is probably worth doing.

After year 4 go with a trusted indie and use VAG parts.

Even buying LongLife oil in bulk when TPS have it on offer, it is still pricey at about £5-6 a litre.

Well the car is out of warranty ... The last service by main dealer was not done correctly yet they charged previous owner £600!

I may get the next service done at the dealer, this was just an oil change rather than do another 6,000 miles on the same syrup.

Ah well that is different, my only concern would be at £50 all in is if it had a decent filter and the correct oil in it as that doesn't leave enough profit for the labour IMO.

Yes I did wonder but they are a genuine local firm.

I wonder how many dealers really do what they promise?

Do some really change the oil...? in a diesel it gets black right away, how can you be sure?

I suspect the lease cars like mine just get a once over, who is going to check?

Nothing worse in the service book than an off centre dealer stamp and some filthy scribbled illegible writing!

I find it rather ironic that there is a general mistrust of large dealers with a lot to lose if they do not keep to standards whereas the local backstreet garage run by someone who looks like they've just walked off the set of rogue traders is trusted implicitly!

Not saying that either are. Ore trustworthy than they other - in fact that's exactly the point I'm making, is that it has no bearing whatsoever......

I use a well know local indi. I was recommended there by a friend who told me how genuine & supurb the work & service was. When I arrive I'm met and greeted by the owner. He takes the time to explain any questions I have. His garage is his lively hood, his business & his means to feed his family. Any bad reputation would hurt his pocket big time. I left with a car in perfect shape and some money left in my pocket. I also got plenty of advice regarding my car.

A friend took his car to skoda for a replacement turbo. It left with bits broken a bodged back together, clips glued in place after snapping. The service & general attitude was awful from service staff. No one cared, they got paid either way. Skoda were uninterested when issues about quality were raised.

Just a different view to dealer vs indi. We're not talking about taking your £20,000 pride & joy to some iffy back street garage, but a proper genuine independent.

You say that - but there's a proper 'backstreet' garage near me that I have seen at least one Aston and two different TVRs outside.

As for being their livelihood, etc, my local skoda dealership is a family business - the owner works in sales with one other salesman, his daughter is the GM and he has a few service guys and an accounts assistant. There's also a part timer who washes the cars. Hardly a faceless corporation.

My own 'trusted' Indy took a look at my headlight alignment (for free) but broke the retaining clip which holds the light unit in because he didn't know how they worked. He is a genius with a VAG engine but clearlly struggled with this one thing. At the end of the day there's no substitute for main dealer training and (perhaps more importantly) for spending all day every day working on the same vehicles.

Just playing devils advocate really

Wash and Hoover? I've never had that at a dealer. I can't fault them and I know 100% that all the work was done. They are a family run dealer that's been there for donkeys

My car is valeted every time it comes out from the dealer's. Perhaps i've just got a good one.

My car is valeted every time it comes out from the dealer's. Perhaps i've just got a good one.

Or a 'big' one.

Be careful though - three cars ago I had a Peugeot which always came back washed and hoovered. Took me a while to realise that as far as washing went, because thy were next to a petrol station they just chucked them all through the car wash.

It had been there half a dozen times for servicing and warranty work and every time it had been through the devils cave.........

It's part of our service core process to clean a car before hand over. However it does depend on the job, maybe not if you have popped into the dealer for a bulb.

Matt raises a few good points on the inde vs dealer war, there are some dealers that aren't as good as others but trust me when I say Skoda are on to this and have invested serious money into the network and are forcing franchises to up their game. I'm not knocking the independents by any means, I know a lot of them personally and how hard they work. They wear their business on their sleeve so to speak not ducking behind a corporate sleeve. But I hate the term 'stealers' that we have been branded with, for every inde I know who is honest and works hard I know someone who works in the dealer network, gets paid pretty poorly tbh over a whole and who tries his or her best to go a good job.

We ain't all crooks

Very true, I think there is good & bad of both. Im just going by my own experiences locally. Mr awol, when your Indy broke the headlight clip, did he tell you? Or did you find it a week later with glue stuck all over it? Just out of curiosity.

Anyway, the point I was making in the first place, there is plenty of reason to trust a Indy over a dealer, and they are not all some dodgy back street garage that takes your money & runs. Having said that th? same can be said for dealers, clearly they are not all the same & I just have a particularly poor one local.

For the first three years the car visited the franchised dealer but not after that.

I've got an indy to do work cheaper and he does a better more thorough job than any dealer I've used.

No argument with using my own parts or oil.

The advantage of main dealer is if you do have a problem you've got a lot more come back. See my "Broke Down" thread, but Skoda UK have have just forked out £3500 for work on mine, which I'm guessing they wouldn't have done without a full dealer service history.

Or a 'big' one.

Be careful though - three cars ago I had a Peugeot which always came back washed and hoovered. Took me a while to realise that as far as washing went, because thy were next to a petrol station they just chucked them all through the car wash.

It had been there half a dozen times for servicing and warranty work and every time it had been through the devils cave.........

Yeah, that's pretty rubbish! Had varying experiences with both VW & Skoda garages so know what you mean. For example I would never use Camberley Seat/Skoda again unless I absolutely had to!

I doubt mine would be like that, i've never known them to be anything other than friendly when i've been in there, am on first name terms with the service staff (both ways, not just me calling them by theirs) and it's pretty much in the middle of a park with nothing else around so they wouldn't be able to get away with that even if they wanted to as everything is miles away!

Pulman Skoda in Durham have their own automated car wash on site.

I didn't realise until I got the car back and it looked worse than it did when I took it in. There is no way an automated car wash can get into all those nook and crannies and into the spokes on the alloys.

Luckily I got a customer comments email from Skoda UK a few days later on which I mentioned the disappointing car wash. They called me to say that next time I took it in they would do it properly.

Needless to say they stuck it back through the same automated car wash which didn't touch the sills, around the mudflaps, around the rear numberplate or any part of the alloys except the faces of the spokes.

Next time it goes in I'll be making a special request for them NOT to wash the car. I might ask for a discount off the bill in line with their labour rates for the 15 minutes worth of car washing they no longer have to do!