How to prepare your car for a service

It pays to be prepared when getting you car serviced, says James Foxall, Telegraph Motoring’s consumer expert.

Franchised car garages make their real money from extras such as parts and servicing

Franchised garages rarely make much profit on the cars they sell. Their real money comes from extras such as parts and servicing. Look at the breakdown of your next bill and you’ll see what I mean.

I recently had my VW Polo serviced at a large local franchise and knew I'd made a mistake when I saw they'd charged me £5 for screen wash.

My first error was not even registering the car needed screen wash. They changed the oil, too, as part of the service. Where I could have bought the same quantity of Castrol Edge for £58.75 from a motor retailer, the garage charged me a hefty £83.52. That was mistake number two.

They also helpfully suggested that one of my front tyres was worn down to 3mm. The cheapest possible replacement was a Dunlop at £150. That's £32 more than the identical rubber from an internet provider. I steered clear of that pitfall.

Of course I could always have gone to an independent garage. In theory you can do that now without invalidating your manufacturer warranty. The reason I didn't was prompted by seeing owners on some internet forums who had gone down the independent route and had car companies refuse to honour the warranty because a particular T hadn't been crossed.

For peace of mind and to save cash, the best-of-both-worlds solution for a car under warranty is to supply your own consumables, something I would have done but for a miscommunication with Mrs F. Just remember to OK supplying your own parts with the dealer. Mine was fine about it, although it did emphasise that I needed to get approved parts to guarantee the warranty.
My final slip-up was not insisting the dealer called with a schedule of work before getting started, which would have alerted me to my earlier careless mistakes.
When the car is more than three years old, I will be going the independent route. Search on motorcodes.co.uk and you should find a garage nearby that's Office of Fair Trading approved. As well as cheaper labour rates, an advantage of independent garages could be the cost of parts. I remember thinking it would be cheaper to source my own components for servicing a Renault Laguna. Actually my local independent could get approved parts for less than shop prices. And much less than the franchised dealer.
Where a franchise would charge £19.98 for an oil filter, the independent could supply it for £9.95. Oil would be £20.65 at an independent and £59.95 at the dealer, while front brake pads were £39.81 from the independent, £55.31 from the dealer.
Research from the AA suggests more drivers than ever are cutting back on servicing to save money. I think that's a false economy. It's much better to be smart about servicing than skip it altogether.
TIME TO GET THE TOP DOWN
With spring approaching, the popularity (and therefore price) of convertibles will start to blossom. If you want to get ahead of the crowd, the place to do it is BCA's first specialist convertible sale of the year at Belle Vue Manchester this Thursday (March 14).
The price of second-hand convertibles is currently high because of the lack of stock so the sales will doubtless be well attended by the trade. But if auctions hold no fear for you, it's probably the last chance before summer to bag a bargain.