I recently posted about potentially purchasing a pre-reg Fabia and I'm happy to report that the transaction has now occurred

 

Thing is, we bargained for a free 1st service and the accompanying letter/voucher we've received states that the service should take place at either 10k miles or 12 months following the car's first registration.

 

Now, the car was registered in June 2015, therefore "12 months following the car's first registration" will be June 2016, at which point the car is likely to have covered something like 500 miles!

 

My gut feel is that there's absolutely no point in having the car serviced so soon, and that instead we should be looking at doing so around June 2017 (the car will have covered around 4k miles max).  I'm therefore going to request that the dealer rewords our service "voucher" to this effect.

 

Am I missing anything?  Do people generally agree?

Sensible as that way of thinking is, I'd doubt if, in the even of a warranty claim, that Skoda UK would agree, I'd think to avoid any problems in the future, get that car serviced in accordance with the Skoda service plan.

 

Edit:- it is just the way things can be with buying pre-reg'd cars, worse that that, when I bought my wife an ex-Jersey Fiesta that was about 6>9 months old, it came with no Ford warranty, unfortunately when it comes to saving money on a car, sometimes you do miss out on what you would get if buying new.

Edited 21 March, 201610 yr by rum4mo

I'd just take the service as Skoda say, after all, you will have over 12 months to save for it's next one, and it will have a full and complete history then, which can mean an awful lot at trade in time.

 Having said that I once bought a Jersey reg Fiat Uno, at just 3 months old, with no warranty ( F 162 PLE  iirc ) and saved around £1k on list, but it went wrong every week, and my local dealer just used to fix it f.o.c., I traded it in after 6  months having ragged it to death, and got more than I paid for it, but then bought a lemon of an Escort.......

Wife's Fiesta Ghia was G 681 YPA, there was a local independent dealer that seemed to "live" of ex Channel Islands ex-rental Fords and Vauxhalls, but this one came from a Mitsi dealer as they were only selling Ghias! Maybe I am wrong with the car's age, might have been closer to 3>6 months, no issues other than radio lost its code which Ford sorted FOC!

 

Edit:- "PA" would be the reg of the port of entry or auction house.

Edited 21 March, 201610 yr by rum4mo

You do not need to have the car serviced then at 9,400 Miles (10,000) or 372 days , which ever comes first.

 

The car can be on Variable Servicing and you could still have the oil changed at 10,000 miles or before, 

you would not Invalidate the Warranty as this will still be to the Manufacturers Schedule / Guidelines.

 

It is a pity the sales person did not discus this with you as he / she handed over the car since the 1st Free Service Offer was kind of irrelevant.

The Service Manager could easily have had the Service Indicator reset.

& the Voucher Reworded.

 

Enjoy the new car.

Edited 21 March, 201610 yr by GoneOffSKi

My sister-in-law owns a 63 reg 1.2 3-cyclinder model which shown on display that an oil change is due. The car had only travelled 2k miles so oil is virtually fresh. The oil was changed and at 9k miles the display now shows that it requires a major service. This is ridiculous and only benefits the dealers

Edited 24 March, 201610 yr by edbostan

If someone has a car on Fixed Servicing,  Annual Servicing then it really is down to them to talk over the Settings and Options on Servicing with Employees at a Reception Desk or the Workshop Manager or Technician.

 

Sadly they are often either not clued up, or just come away with some guff on service schedules or regimes.

It is actually all set up for the benefit of Serving Providers rather than customers.

 

Skoda could at least try explaining on websites like VW do in some understandable sort of way.

http://volkswagen.co.uk/owners/servicing/regimes

http://volkswagen.co.uk/about-us/faq/servicing

Edited 24 March, 201610 yr by GoneOffSKi