Recently had our 2024 Karoq in for its 2nd service, no faults to complain about, just the service visit I bought with the car – they did of course push the brake fluid change and AirCon service, but as the car has only done 7k, stops and cools as I'd expect, I declined.

Now I can't be the only owner on here that gets easily wound up by the pedantic front of house service staff following a script – everything from pushing extras (see above), wanting the car all day for a simple expensive oil change to the drawn out 'explanation' of what's been tick box checked....?

Anyway, I digress, when I dropped off the car I was given a couple of service plan options to look over, one being the 2 year 'All In' plan from Skoda, expensive I thought at £960 and curiously, my motor isn't eligible for another year.

The other option was a 'today, one day only' deal to pay up front for year 3 service, either interest free monthly or in one lump sum @ £216.19 to include 1 x MoT and any puncture repairs – the strange thing is, this particular main dealer is not known for giving anything away, let alone offering any sort of discount – they are as tight as the proverbial duck's ar5e.

Upon collecting the car and after listening to the many 'tick box' explanations and the current good tread depth of my tyres, etc., etc., I requested to take the 3rd service offer – I paid cash upfront and in keeping with their parsimony had to wait 10 minutes while 81p in change was found, keeping in mind the card charge would have been near on a tenner.....waving the 19p wasn't an option.....!

When reading the documentation I see the deal I had bought was not actually offered / financed by the dealer but by a company called EMaC Ltd., I'm now a little concerned I might have been had in the bear trap – can't see too much online about them.

In conclusion, I'm more than a bit narked that the main dealer can offer a deal to this company that is then able to sell the same to me, at an advantageous rate.

A 3rd service and MoT the dealer next year would have cost me considerably more?

Quite simply, to put it another way, the dealer and EmaC are both making enough to be happy – so there must be a good chunk of excess profit in regular normal service charges......?

Anyone on here had dealings with EMaC or come across this sort of thing.....?

On Trustpilot EMaC has a 4-star rating from around 7,000 reviews — decent for the sector, though the negative reviews tend to cluster around cosmetic/warranty product claim disputes rather than the core service plans. Real-world user feedback on forums is broadly that the plans are a reasonable budgeting tool, sometimes with modest savings versus paying as you go and no interest charged, but that you're tied to the dealer network, there's a risk if your dealer loses its franchise, and cancellation fees can apply after 60 days.

Had a couple of plans with EMAC over the years and they've worked fine. Had to cancel one on our Ateca as we took it to cover the cars 4th and 5th years as the car had a 5yr warranty so couldn't use All In. Then I found out by chance that the SEAT dealer hadn't applied the warranty - they knew, hadn't told us, and kept the money. So they cancelled the EMAC plan, got the payments refund and put the car onto All In.

As for dealer servicing prices - it drives me nuts. The Skoda dealer we use has mental prices on their website but the service manager has wibbled about how it's out of his control - even though it's one-off family owned dealership and the prices are set by dealers (they're all slightly different).

Wasn't an issue on our Karoq as bought it Approved Used so after the two included services it was old enough to go onto All In. Daughter's Kamiq was bought new, had two services and even though I've specifically asked I haven't been offered any way of mitigating the upcoming 3rd service - even though I know the dealer uses EMAC.

On wife's previous Tiguan the dealer (probably the best dealer I've dealt with) put the car on All In (the car had to have a dealer check for All In back then) on the 6th birthday, 1st Sept. but somehow managed to do the service and MOT at the day before under the plan. I asked the Skoda dealer if the same was possible at 3yrs and they said no.

It's not that many years ago that a VW dealer accidentally gave me the invoice they send to VWFS for the car's first oil service - it was £68 inc parts, labour and VAT. I waited while it was done and the car was in the workshop 20 mins. Servicing at full retail prices is astonishingly profitable.