The Yeti went in for its first service today, 18,300 miles and 18 months from when it was delivered.  I booked it on the phone with a dealer in Swindon, who was not the supplying dealer.  They asked if it was on a service plan, which it is, and asked the mileage, which I gave, and they replied this must be its first variable service, which I acknowledged.

 

Today I get a call from the servicing dealer.  They have tried to authorise the service with the service plan people and been told it shouldn't be on variable servicing, it should be on fixed as the plan provides a service at 10, 20 and 30,000 miles.  It has, therefore, effectively missed its first service and they are having to log this one as the 20k service.  There was talk of "rejecting" the service authorisation and missed services.

 

In the end it was resolved that all that has really happened is that I have essentially lost out on a free service.  It will be set to T&D today and will get another service in 12 months/10k miles, then the service plan is finished.  The servicing dealer said that cars sold with a service plan should be set to T&D at sale.

 

I then called the supplying dealer, who said yes, it should be set to T&D but all cars come from the factory set to variable and some "get through the net" at PDI and go out on variable, when they should be on fixed.  He agreed that I have effectively lost out on a free service, but also said that as far as service history and warranty are concerned it's fine, as it hasn't actually missed a scheduled service.

 

After consultation with the service manager he agreed that when it is time for the third service, which will be out of the contract plan, take it to them and they'll "sort me out".  I asked him to make a record of this which he appeared to do (well, he took my car's reg number).  He did apologise for letting it out on variable rather than T&D.

 

I am not concerned about the service interval itself (I know that the oil is 504 00/507 00 anyway) and in truth not that bothered about the service plan, but I did want to make sure they knew they were missing stuff on the PDIs.  The offer of extra servicing was a nice touch - we'll see what happens when it comes to coughing up on this promise!

I think mine is set on variable, but I was planning on going ahead and booking it at 10k miles for its first free service.

 

 

I had two free services with the juke, and when I went for the first one they said 'oh your car is 54 weeks old so you may be too late for a freebie under the t&c's blah blah'. I pointed out that I had in fact tried to book it a few weeks earlier for a saturday morn as I lived 125 miles away. It wasn't my fault that they made me wait several weeks. They gave in and did it for free.

A good tip to remember that (should I get a new Yeti) in future!

Interesting. My Tiguan was incorrectly set too. Should have been on variable but set to T and D. Corrected by local dealer, not supplying dealer....but took two attempts.

I agree with Marie, even if set on variable why wait for 18k or so miles before taking it in. I would always have a 12 month / 10k service regardless especially if it's on a free plan. I would imagine that on low mileage cars is when most wear takes place polluting the oil, filter etc.

My 2012 Urban TDi was delivered set to variable. I queried this with my supplying dealer, as the car is included in the 3 years free servicing deal. They agreed that in order to get the best out of the deal, I should have the car serviced every 10K.

 

The first service was completed at 10K miles, but the car was returned to me set to variable.

 

It will shortly be due for it's next "free" service (@20K) and I'll ask if they can set it to every 10K, rather than variable.

I could have taken it in at 10k, if I had thought about it, but I simply followed the dashboard service interval. I also have a company car which you can not get serviced until the dash tells you to, and I guess I have got used to this process.

I had a follow up call from the guy who sold the car to us today, who also agreed that they would make sure I was looked after when I wanted a third service. So far so good, but a promise is nothing until delivered, so let's see.

it's a cautionary tale for everyone on a service deal to make sure they know what plan they are actually on. I checked mine when the paperwork came through and like you my car is (still) set to variable even though I'm on the fixed service plan so I'll be ringing my dealer in October when my car's approaching 12 months old even if as expected there's no spanner light in sight. There was another member who had similar problems earlier this year IIRC who was on a fixed service plan but went over the 10k/12 months limit because his car had been left on the variable setting. He too hsd problems getting skoda finance to pay for the service as a result.

This has happened to me a twice, first VRs in 2007 was set to variable and on first service the manager went on one but saw sense as it was the dealers fault so had one fixed and then set to variable.

 

My 2010 VRs was set to variable however I reset it to fixed via the maxidot as I checked again the dealer didn't do it on the PDI and I have free servicing.

Complain to Skoda UK and they'll sort the missed service

Thanks for this post; reminded me on I need to chase our dealer re the Monte. It's also on a free plan with the finance but we've not had any paperwork confirming this, unlike the optional 5 year warranty where we did get a letter acknowledging the extension.

 

Oh likewise said Monte is also still on factory set variable not T&D.

 

 

TP

I think this is a common problem, I remember reading on here a long way back that you have to tell the dealer if you want to go onto Fixed Time and Distance servicing as all cars are delivered as variable from the factory.

Our projected mileage was not high enough to warrant the variable service. I am sure oil and filters are good for 18k miles over a shortish time frame, but I expect they will suffer if they are used for too long. At my rate of use it would take me nearly 3 years to reach that sort of distance, by which time the oil would most likely be shot.

 

When I took delivery of our car I asked the sales guy, who was not the original one (he had retired in the 6 months from order to delivery) to check the servicing set up. 

It was still on variable, but as it was a Saturday afternoon all the workshop bods had gone home so there was no way of getting it changed.

The supplying dealer was 300 miles from home and my nearest dealer is 40 miles away, so I have not got it changed.

 

Other points of concern are that I have no paperwork to actually show I have the servicing included. The free servicing deal in 2012 stopped for 4x4's in May or June, we ordered ours in April. I do however have an email chain showing all my conversations regarding the change to fixed and to confirm the servicing is valid for our car.

 

Oddly the Citigo ordered from the same dealer about 4 months later, does have free servicing documentation.

Well, the variable servicing does have a time interval too, so you'd never go over 2 years anyway. Plus, as you said, the cars come factory-filled with 504 00/507 00 oil (that's VW's long life oil specification) regardless of what interval gets set on the dashboard at PDI.

The dealers are supposed to set to T&D if sold with a service plan regardless of if you ask them to do it or not. Seems like this is getting missed a lot.