See here for details - tinyurl.com/7k5pe9 As the list below shows, they do a full range of checks, but looks like anything (maybe incl oil change) will cost extra. Anyone ever had one of these?
Selective quotes from the above pages:
Is your Ford over three years old? If so, it qualifies for a £99 Ford Value Service ? a cheaper alternative to a full service, designed especially for older vehicles.
1. Pop in for a Ford Value Service at just £99 and we?ll give you a £25 giftcard to spend at any of seven specially selected retailers.
2. Combine a Ford Value Service with an MOT and you?ll pay only £129 ? saving 15% ? plus, you?ll receive a £25 giftcard, as above.
The Ford Value Service includes checks on:
Handbrake
Clutch
Windscreen
Washers, wipers
Exterior lights and fascia illumination
Instrument gauges, warning lights and horn
Heating system, blower motor
Air conditioning
Seat belts
Bonnet catch
Wiring, pipes, hoses, oil and fuel pipes
Engine, vacuum pump and cooling system
Coolant expansion tank, windscreen washer, power steering and brake fluid reservoirs
Coolant
Auxiliary Drive Belts
Battery
Automatic transmission
Steering, suspension linkages, ball joints, driveshafts, gaiters
Front and rear wheel bearings
Engine and transmission
Exhaust
Underbody
Braking system
Tyres including spare wheel
Wheel nuts
Air Filter
Oil & oil filter
If any work is needed, it?s carried out using Ford quality parts, as they guarantee your vehicle will perform to its optimum level. As for our workmanship, we have it independently checked by the RAC, to help us maintain the very highest standards.
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I would be careful, as if its an older old car they may find a lot of can of worms you may not want to know about. Also if they find things like brake pipes need replacing it can get quite expensive. If however you just ask them to diagnose the faults and then get the work done else where this offer makes sense. But on a 10 year old Focus I can see this 'service' easily costing over £500 if you're not careful.
The offer is very cheap for a reason, they want to recoup the money by carrying out extra work, not the work may well need to be done, but maybe not till another 12 months or even by your local indie at quarter of the price.
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The listing sounds like a fairly standard "small" service. Oil & filter, and a good check round.
When times are a bit quiet, this kind of offer is quite common, and the idea is to get some older cars into the workshop. There's a good chance that these older cars will need work doing, especially lucrative brake work, and so, offering the service at a discount will usually be a worthwhile offer for the workshop to make.
If you can overcome the hard sell at the end of the service, and take the car to an independant for the follow up work, you'll get the best out of the offer.
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Not on this Forum buit another forum, somebody took his 12 year old Primera to a national chain for a service. They found the brake pads and discs needed to be changed, but they after they removed it they said it needed new calipers. He ende dup being charged £700 for a car that was worth £500.
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I pay £150 on the Volvo Essentials scheme to get my 206,000 mile 9 yr old V70 serviced. So far I've had it done twice, and nothing has been picked up and worked on there and then (other than the exhaust is falling off a bit... for the last 2 services...) that is requiring masses of work. I'm probably going to bite the bullet and go in for a full service next time (216k) as I think it's the last stamp in the book... I've now run out of spaces in there.
I regularily recommend it to people; the service is a good measue of what is up with the car; at the moment it's in for it's MOT next week at work (council depot) where I think they'll pick up the steering that was also picked up on the service. I'll get that done at one of the specialists, and then get it re-tested.
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When I queried the service price on our Jazz (£185, I think) the dealer said they could do one of their £99 value services but as the schedule was different to Honda's they wouldn't be able to stamp the service book. Ended up getting the "proper" service for £160 which I'm not thrilled about but the car has never needed any other work.
I would never (normally) get the MOT done as part of a deal - I usually use our village garage. I slipped up with daughter's Ibiza - dealer had a free MOT offer - and the dealership created £250 worth of work.
Edited by Bill Payer on 03/01/2009 at 00:00
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Looks interesting Smokie, will look into this.
But memories of a certain Ford dealership left me very angry and unlikely to use at least this dealerhip again (I know there are decent ones). They actually took the p and left a bitter taste in my mouth.
The most important thing, I said, is that you look at the intermittent speedometer. You will need to drive it for about 10 minutes for it to fail. The garage had previously "looked at it" and said "we couldn't recreate the fault mate". Anyway, this time they knew.
Later, about 4pm, I rang to check all was OK as I was relying on a lift to pick my car up.
"We've not looked at that one yet mate so we're gonna need it tomorrow as well."
Nice. I said I definitely needed transport to work and after telling me brusquely there were'nt any left, they managed to rustle up a Ka.
Anyway, when I went to pick my car up the next day there was a note for me "Couldn't recreate speedo fault, cannot find fault with bonnet." They'd no knowledge of my message about the 10 minutes so had done nothing.
This despite the bonnet sitting proud of the car by about 5mm and the speedo not working at all on my way home. I wrote a letter to the manager asking why I should visit again. Needless to say I never heard back from them but have since been inundated with special offers on new cars which they know I'm not in the market for.
Since then, I have found the most brilliant independent (recommended by a friend but subsequently I discover is on HJ's recommended garages list). They had no problem at all fixing both problems quickly, cheaply and with a personal service (which the Ford garage boasted about but delievered indifference). Quite brilliant. The mechanics all manage to look up and say hello and the owner is prepared to discuss, explain anything you want to know. He seems to delight in knowing that his customers hand over their money genuinely happy that they KNOW they've not been taken advantage of. I've had three or four services done by Witmun Engineering (in lovely Merstham) and I can't imagine now going elsewhere.
There. I always knew independents were good for cars over three years old. But I never really bought into it until the obvious danced in front of me. I feel quite silly now even admitting I had my car serviced at a main dealer.
So Smokie, I come to your proposal with some trepidation.
Edited by Pugugly on 03/01/2009 at 12:43
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Thanks so far, especially FocusDriver. I've had similar experiences over the years in the big dealerships. Having thought a bit about this since posting, I don't think I will use it. I don't believe garages always look for work, but I know my local Vx dealer is somewhere around £80 ph compared to my little man at £35, so I think I'd prefer to take it to him for the basic stuff, even though his tech knowledge may not match that (supposedly) in the dealership.
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>>even though his tech knowledge
For a little service like the one posted up top, it's a tech knowledge free zone! As long as;
the oil's the right type and quality,
the tyre pressure values are looked up correctly
and the wheelnuts are torqued to the correct torque
there's not much else to get wrong!
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Interestingly Smokie, I was chatting to the owner of the garage after work one day when I went to pick up my car and, since he didn't seem to be in a hurry I asked him a few questions.
I said I know a '99 Focus is fairly standard mechanically, but what if I bought a 3 year-old Corolla or Almera (or similar). Or a bigger car like an Accord?
He said this is one of his bug-bears. One of the points you make too. He said there's nothing more irritating than people assuming they're only good for servicing old bangers. In order to survive as a small independent garage, he explained, "we couldn't very well say 'nah, too complicated for us, sorry'". They have ALL the computer kit you need for pretty much any car on the market (over a year or two old naturally due to warranted free servicing). Again, I felt a bit stupid for having assumed this man didn't know what he was doing!
I'm not sure about the national distribution of seeming fantasy-land-garages such as this but consider myself very lucky indeed to have found them.
Based on rough averages, I reckon they've saved me well over £1k over three years or so.
Let us know what you do, I'd be interested to hear.
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My Focus is with the local Ford dealer at this moment having one of these services so I will be able to give feedback later. The offer was £40 in giftcards for the same price but had to be done by the end of January.
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stevek - would be interested to hear what you think.
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Well I have to say I am pleased. They changed the oil/air filters and checked everything else. They suggested that I get the front pads/disks changed in the next couple of months but as they quoted £230 I think thats a little steep. They stamped the service book (and added it was a value service).
I think its good value of a oil/filter/air change at a nett cost of £59. And from a main dealer.
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Cheers Steve. Very good! I suppose it's always a bad idea to say "never again" since the bargain-hunter will need to switch suppliers occasionally to get the best deal.
Bit troubled by the "value service" stamp in your service book though. The cynic in me simply thinks they'll say in a year or so "you only had a value service, so surely you didn't expect..."
Not had my discs changed by my indie so not sure on the £230.
My guess is that, as folk economise, main dealers might become more approachable and reasonable value. It's always worth keeping an open mind.
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Thanks for the comment. I dont look at the value stamp in the same way. If I was buying a car with this history then at least I would know its been looked at by a main dealer and the absolute basics of oil and air have been done. After all even at "normal" services things may not be necessarily done. Also the car is now coming up to 5 years old so the service history has almost no effect on its value. The car is a standard C Max so its not a sought after or specialist model that maybe would warrant such attention to servicing.
I think its good value and it is offers like this that will attract the private customer to the dealer. In these economic days that is what they need.
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Always happy to admit I'm wrong. I think your point is more valid than mine to be honest. Good call on the service history. Put in that position, I'd look favourably if buying your car from you. It wouldn't matter if it was a 'value service'; the point is it's been looked at at the right time.
More important than a potential argument with the dealership for sure and you're right, it's very good value and can only serve to increase their business for minor services.
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I use local Indie - his son works for a large chain that advertise "fixed price deals" - £69 / £99
In his words "very few leave with a bill under £250!"
If ye seek "ye shall find"
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Does it actualy include an oil and filter change? It only mentions a check on the Ford website.
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Yep!
Its a minor service and of course includes an oil and fliter change, also air filter IIRC.
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