Capped servicing chages

[KenN0898]

Hi, As the owner of a 2012 LW2 Ford Focus Trend Petrol engine I would like to put the following question to members of this Forum.

Do you have your Ford car seviced by a Ford agent and if so what is your opinion regarding the capped servicing charges;-

1. Do you accept the charges as charged by Ford without question?, or

2. Do you haggle and try to negociate a discounted price because you are like me and consider the capped charges too high?, or

3. Do you take your car to a non Ford servicing outlet for a service as per the Ford service schedule, and then have your book stamped by that non Ford agent. If so, what outlet do you use? i.e. K Mart, Ulta Tune, etc? .

So far I have had my car seviced by the Ford agent where I purchased the car. The last service was the 15000Km service, and after some negociation before I left the car for service the Ford agent agreed to reduce the charge from $335 to $300 dollars.

I would like to know if other members do as I did and if so what discounts have been obtained

Cheers,

Ken N

[Mulga]

Had my 15k service on the ST at a Ford dealer and it cost $330.00.......did not haggle over the price, but will generally ask for a wash and clean or they'll give me a voucher for a hand wash and vacuum. I've noticed that a few dealers are no longer offering a wash and clean.....or maybe you just have to ask instead.

[marg99]

You pay for what you get! (one way or the other)

[kelvinyhm]

No haggle. Just service and pay at Ford center. They wash and vacuum even I didn't ask for it.

Checked last time with Honda Civic and Mazda 3 (during buying decision) that their service is 6 mths and $200+ capped per service (~$500/yr). So Ford still cheaper at $335/yr

[ivorya]

Originally Posted by kelvinyhm

No haggle. Just service and pay at Ford center. They wash and vacuum even I didn't ask for it.

Checked last time with Honda Civic and Mazda 3 (during buying decision) that their service is 6 mths and $200+ capped per service (~$500/yr). So Ford still cheaper at $335/yr

However, when you take your car in for servicing at these dealers(Mazda etc), they look at how many kays you've completed and WILL reduce the price, quite significantly for low KM cars.

[Foconatic]

Just had the LW serviced yesterday. 30k / 2yr, But only done 22500 km. The Ford dealer charged me $350 (Trade on parts) so they said. Parts replaced were Oil & filter, pollen filter and brake fluid. I work for a Suzuki dealership and could have the tech's at work do it at a fraction of the cost, but my reasoning behind this is if that DCT pays up in the future or if it's out of warranty they can't say,,,Tough luck you did not get it serviced at a Ford dealership so pay up. Don't trust the excuses they make (Ford) that the DCT issues are characteristics of a DCT. Just like VW initially did and then end up having to fix the issues under warranty.

[KenN0898]

Originally Posted by Foconatic

Just had the LW serviced yesterday. 30k / 2yr, But only done 22500 km. The Ford dealer charged me $350 (Trade on parts) so they said. Parts replaced were Oil & filter, pollen filter and brake fluid. I work for a Suzuki dealership and could have the tech's at work do it at a fraction of the cost, but my reasoning behind this is if that DCT pays up in the future or if it's out of warranty they can't say,,,Tough luck you did not get it serviced at a Ford dealership so pay up. Don't trust the excuses they make (Ford) that the DCT issues are characteristics of a DCT. Just like VW initially did and then end up having to fix the issues under warranty.

My understanding is that the warranty remains valid just as long as you have the car serviced as per the Ford servicing schedule and any parts used are genuine Ford. But I am not sure how people who do their own servicing would go if there was a problem that would otherwise be covered by warranty. I imagine there would be a problem in that instance.
I have ask these questions about servicing because a few years ago my son worked in the car servicing industry but eventually he became so disgusted at the way unsuspecting car owners were being ripped off that he left the industry and retained in another industry.
As I see it, many owners have no alternative other than to put their trust in their servicing agent, especially those who aren't mechanically minded or very knowledgeable with the mechanics of their car, and I am sure there are many instances where gullible car owners do not receive the full service that they have paid for.

[pajoda]

Originally Posted by KenN0898

My understanding is that the warranty remains valid just as long as you have the car serviced as per the Ford servicing schedule and any parts used are genuine Ford. But I am not sure how people who do their own servicing would go if there was a problem that would otherwise be covered by warranty. I imagine there would be a problem in that instance.
I have ask these questions about servicing because a few years ago my son worked in the car servicing industry but eventually he became so disgusted at the way unsuspecting car owners were being ripped off that he left the industry and retained in another industry.
As I see it, many owners have no alternative other than to put their trust in their servicing agent, especially those who aren't mechanically minded or very knowledgeable with the mechanics of their car, and I am sure there are many instances where gullible car owners do not receive the full service that they have paid for.

I believe the criteria you have mentioned is true and I think it also has to be performed by a qualified shop too, and of course recorded in the service book.

[Yellow_Festiva]

Originally Posted by Foconatic

Just had the LW serviced yesterday. 30k / 2yr, But only done 22500 km. The Ford dealer charged me $350 (Trade on parts) so they said. Parts replaced were Oil & filter, pollen filter and brake fluid. I work for a Suzuki dealership and could have the tech's at work do it at a fraction of the cost, but my reasoning behind this is if that DCT pays up in the future or if it's out of warranty they can't say,,,Tough luck you did not get it serviced at a Ford dealership so pay up. Don't trust the excuses they make (Ford) that the DCT issues are characteristics of a DCT. Just like VW initially did and then end up having to fix the issues under warranty.

If it's out of warranty you will be on your own regarding the DCT. Mine carked it 1 month / 63K km out of warranty and it was an epic battle to get Ford to do anything, even when they 'serviced' it 2 months prior to this (so, within the warranty period) at 60K km....

In reality, the servicing / warranty structure Ford uses means that you don't even touch the DCT till well out of warranty based on regular driving.

[Foconatic]

Originally Posted by Yellow_Festiva

If it's out of warranty you will be on your own regarding the DCT. Mine carked it 1 month / 63K km out of warranty and it was an epic battle to get Ford to do anything, even when they 'serviced' it 2 months prior to this (so, within the warranty period) at 60K km....

In reality, the servicing / warranty structure Ford uses means that you don't even touch the DCT till well out of warranty based on regular driving.

If that is the case with Ford, it will be the last Ford that I will be buying and the last time I will be using the servicing dealer.

I have worked as a service advisor with Hyundai, Toyota and now an assistant
service manager with Suzuki. In all three products the policy is if the customer is loyal we will do our level best to look after them even after warranty especially if it a known fault. Even if a customer services elsewhere we will still apply for goodwill for a known fault/concern. And in some cases proof of service history need not be a factor.

[Yellow_Festiva]

Originally Posted by ivorya

However, when you take your car in for servicing at these dealers(Mazda etc), they look at how many kays you've completed and WILL reduce the price, quite significantly for low KM cars.

Just curious about this. Why whould they offer a discount based on KM? Will they use less consumables / do less checks / take less care??

[ivorya]

Originally Posted by Yellow_Festiva

Just curious about this. Why whould they offer a discount based on KM? Will they use less consumables / do less checks / take less care??

Maybe they are looking at the fact that this car is a private person, which has no real loyalty to them.
So if they "seem" to do the right thing by them, they'll continue to give them the service work.
I guess with so many of the cars these days being fleet, service departments can suggest any price and it'll get paid anyway.
Is someone paying $350 a fortnight on a package deal going to care if they have to pay $352 for the next car they get because the service department has increased the price over the previous year, Not really as they are looking at the Tax savings.

[Foconatic]

Originally Posted by ivorya

I guess with so many of the cars these days being fleet, service departments can suggest any price and it'll get paid anyway.

Not true. Fleet company's have fixed labour rates and trade prices on parts which is far below retail prices. Trust me we don't look forward to fleet cars, waste of time holding on to get authorizations and finalizing over the phone or the net.

[Foconatic]

Originally Posted by Yellow_Festiva

Just curious about this. Why whould they offer a discount based on KM? Will they use less consumables / do less checks / take less care??

No, to the latter part of the question. Regarding the discount based on Less km. I can only speak for the company I work for. Here's an example: Services are recommended by time or km's which ever comes first. If a customer comes in for a scheduled service and the car has done the km and the time factor is also spot on we would recommend the service be carried out by the book. If however a person has low km's but service is due by time we can offer we do the bare essentials.we would not for example replace an air filter,fuel filter or drive belts ( if the schedule recommended it). Thus saving the customer money. We would however recommend items such as brake fluid and coolant be replaced on time irrespective of low km's. And are time based.
Also if the car is out of warranty, we can only advise them on what is recommended and leave the choice to them.

[kelvinyhm]

Originally Posted by ivorya

However, when you take your car in for servicing at these dealers(Mazda etc), they look at how many kays you've completed and WILL reduce the price, quite significantly for low KM cars.

Not sure how true is this in general but 4 of my mates (2x Mazda 3 1xHonda Civic 1xCorolla) they paid at stated capped price for their log book service. Not that they complaining...just saying.

Edited: fyi, all new car with low ks. everyone on public transport during weekdays. :p

[ivorya]

Originally Posted by kelvinyhm

Not sure how true is this in general but 4 of my mates (2x Mazda 3 1xHonda Civic 1xCorolla) they paid at stated capped price for their log book service. Not that they complaining...just saying.

Edited: fyi, all new car with low ks. everyone on public transport during weekdays. :p

Here in Newcastle, Crossroads Mazda, where my wife gets her Mazda 3 serviced, have been reducing the price of servicing since she got the car.
They said, they always look after Low kay cars by reducing the cost. The rough cost of each service should be $300+ but we've been getting it done for $200. She is lucky to drive 10000km per yr as I use my car most of the time during the weekend.
What makes this interesting is that we didn't even buy the car from them (Brookvale Mazda) and they are still looking after us.
Simple things like this has also added to their service department as we've told numerous friends to take their new Mazda's out there.
Win-Win for them!

[Smoke Pursuit]

Originally Posted by ivorya

Here in Newcastle, Crossroads Mazda, where my wife gets her Mazda 3 serviced, have been reducing the price of servicing since she got the car.
They said, they always look after Low kay cars by reducing the cost. The rough cost of each service should be $300+ but we've been getting it done for $200. She is lucky to drive 10000km per yr as I use my car most of the time during the weekend.
What makes this interesting is that we didn't even buy the car from them (Brookvale Mazda) and they are still looking after us.
Simple things like this has also added to their service department as we've told numerous friends to take their new Mazda's out there.
Win-Win for them!

This is one dealer... Not mazda in general.

[Citwit]

Originally Posted by ivorya

Here in Newcastle, Crossroads Mazda, where my wife gets her Mazda 3 serviced, have been reducing the price of servicing since she got the car.
They said, they always look after Low kay cars by reducing the cost. The rough cost of each service should be $300+ but we've been getting it done for $200. She is lucky to drive 10000km per yr as I use my car most of the time during the weekend.
What makes this interesting is that we didn't even buy the car from them (Brookvale Mazda) and they are still looking after us.
Simple things like this has also added to their service department as we've told numerous friends to take their new Mazda's out there.
Win-Win for them!

This is exactly the point I was making. Good customer service is a win for the business. Satisfied customers keep coming back and tell their friends. Presumably as Foconatic mentioned they probably don't do things that don't need doing. I would be surprised that they would do a $300 service for $200 without omitting something. From my experience, in contrast, the air filter requires replacement at the 60,000 km service but it was replaced at the 45,000 km service. I don't have a problem with that. I didn't see the filter but I have to take their word for it hat it needed replacing. At the 60,000 km service they replaced it again. There is no way it needed replacing after another 15,000 km given the type of driving I do. I asked why it had been replaced and hey replied that the schedule stated it had to be replaced at 60,000 km. Again poor customer service.

[pajoda]

I specifically ask them not to wash my car, all I have is visions of swirl marks after the event.

[Citwit]

I normally do my own servicing. If I do it myself I know that it had been done properly. I find it very annoying that when I buy a new car I have to have a dealer do the servicing if I want to maintain the warranty. I have realised long ago that getting a dealer to do the servicing does not mean getting the job done even as well as I can do it myself and in some cases getting it done at all. My experience in getting my Focus serviced include: losing minor parts from the engine on 2 occasions (the rubber mounts holding the engine cover on in spite of me drawing this to their attention after the first time), the job half done (changing the brake fluid also requires the clutch fluid to be done at the same time but they admitted clutch fluid was not changed ), the invoice stating they have used an oil that does not meet their own Ford standard (it was a mistake on the invoice of course) and adding extra items to the capped price service without asking me before it was done (at the 75000 km service $50 for an emission service was added. When i quizzed the customer service person, and at a later date the dealer principal, as to what that was and why it was done they couldn't tell me. After I complained they refunded the $50).
There is more than the above. I wrote it all down (ended up about 5 pages) and discussed it with the dealer principal. I shouldn't have wasted my time. In part of the conversation he seemed angry that customers went elsewhere for regular servicing but only came back to them for warranty issues. I wonder why that occurs? When it came time to replace my wife's car I would have liked to have bought a Fiesta but I couldn't bear going through the service debacle again. I can't understand the way dealers spend considerable amounts on advertising when all they have to do is give good customer service to existing customers who are likely to bring them repeat business. Good customer generally costs them nothing.
Interestingly with the LT diesel focus the Ford service schedule indicates that the timing belt should be replaced after 240.000 km. The Haynes manual recommends 100,000 km. I believe the same engine in a Peugeot or Citroen requires the belt replacement before 100,000 km. I don't know if there has been any issues with the belts breaking before 240,000 km but the consequences of the belt breaking will be very expensive and the car will be long out of warranty and won't be Ford's problem.

[KenN0898]

Thanks for the comments and I have to say that the responses to my thread is pretty much as I expected, I have been aware of the short comings when putting my car into a dealer for regular scheduled service which is why I asked if other owners were negociating the capped cost as I have.
Yes, I have noted the reply from marg99 who stated that "You pay for what you get! (one way or the other)". So I ask marg99, was the word "don't" unintensionally ommited from that sentence?, reading forum members comments here most have indicated that we are paying for what we DON'T get.
So I guess whenever I have negociated a price I have done so in the hope that I would then be charged a price which would more accurately reflect the actual cost of the work that has been done on my car. However reading comments here it appears that even when negotiating a discount, the chances are I will still pay too much because the dealer will simply make up the short fall by failing to change a filter or other consumable that was due for change, but will still charge for the parts on the account.
So now I am considering the option of having my car serviced by a small local independent workshop but I suppose I will still need to make sure that in addition to the Ford book service, genuine Ford replacement parts are used as per the warranty requirement. So now I would like to know this, are filters considered to be parts or are they classed as consumables or expendables, if so would the use of such items invalidate my warranty
Cheers
Ken

[Yellow_Festiva]

Originally Posted by KenN0898

So now I am considering the option of having my car serviced by a small local independent workshop but I suppose I will still need to make sure that in addition to the Ford book service, genuine Ford replacement parts are used as per the warranty requirement. So now I would like to know this, are filters considered to be parts or are they classed as consumables or expendables, if so would the use of such items invalidate my warranty
Cheers
Ken

If I were going to supply parts to a mechanic to service my car I would use the exact 'correct' consumables as per what Ford (or any other brand) requires.

If there is a remote chance that a cheaper service item has caused damage to your vehicle it will give Ford an out to your warranty claim.

Eg, say you chose a cheaper generic oil / fuel / air filter. Perhaps it may only be a few dollars less than 'genuine' but if that filter fails before it should - say it allows larger foreign items to enter the engine due to lower tolerances or standards or say the internal material becomes dislodged and causes internal damage it can be argued that using the 'incorrect' consumables (that perhaps do not achieve the same quality standards as per what the factory specifies) has caused the damage, not a fault that was existing in the car.

Similar has happened with the ZF. People, from what I understand have had them serviced with the incorrect fluids in the early days and had things go wrong because the fluids were not up to the specifications required by Ford.

[KenN0898]

Originally Posted by Yellow_Festiva

If I were going to supply parts to a mechanic to service my car I would use the exact 'correct' consumables as per what Ford (or any other brand) requires.

If there is a remote chance that a cheaper service item has caused damage to your vehicle it will give Ford an out to your warranty claim.

Eg, say you chose a cheaper generic oil / fuel / air filter. Perhaps it may only be a few dollars less than 'genuine' but if that filter fails before it should - say it allows larger foreign items to enter the engine due to lower tolerances or standards or say the internal material becomes dislodged and causes internal damage it can be argued that using the 'incorrect' consumables (that perhaps do not achieve the same quality standards as per what the factory specifies) has caused the damage, not a fault that was existing in the car.

Similar has happened with the ZF. People, from what I understand have had them serviced with the incorrect fluids in the early days and had things go wrong because the fluids were not up to the specifications required by Ford.

Thank you Yellow-Festiva, that is really good advice and it also goes a long way to ensuring that filters etc. has actually been changed and the correct oil has been used, doesn't it?, so it is probably the way to go because at least it will ensure as far as is possible that the service has been fully completed as per the schedule, and the correct Ford consumable has been used. But isn't it sad that we have now become so mis-trusting of the dealers when it comes to the servicing our cars after we have purchased them.
.