Servicing extra fees…

[Robertb]

Got an email from my local Mercedes main dealer advertising their servicing, offering various options.

I was surprised to see they are now charging a fee for a loan car (plus insurance charge) and a fee for collection and or/delivery. New one on me, or maybe I’m just not observant.

Is this commonplace now… Since when has this been a thing?

[Rough101]

Since COVID, when it was more a deterrent, but has stuck.

Merc used to arrive in a Smart, leave it and take mine away back in the day, all included, not cheap though, I think you had to swipe for an excess or pay £35 if you wanted to use the Smart car though.

[blank]

Had my wife's car in for a warranty investigation a couple of weeks ago and they wanted to charge for a courtesy car. To investigate a fault on a 6 month old car. I thought that was taking the piss a bit.

[TheDrownedApe]

Had my volvo booked in on Monday. From Thurs before they peppered me asking to "check-in", wtf.

Anyone got annoyed by the repeated pings by text and email so relented. Once I had said I was still coming I had to pass through two pages of crap asking if I wanted aircon recharge and all sorts of crap.

The last nail was if I wanted to buy a cuddly bear.....

[Mr_J]

My Alfa Romeo main dealer offered me a dealer valet for £20 extra a couple of months ago. In response to 'what's a dealer valet?' it transpired that they vacuumed the interior and dressed the interior plastics.

No thanks.

[bitchstewie]

Are they still trying to charge people for waiting in their "lounges" whilst their cars are serviced?

[vikingaero]

There is a premium for a lot of dealers, roughly in order:
- while u wait servicing
- collection/delivery
- leave for am/pm
- leave all day

Most loan or courtesy cars will attract a charge and/or insurance charge.

It's fair and makes sense. Those who want the all in ball tickling service pay more than the guy who is happy to dump the car at 7am and pick it up at 5pm without using coffee, toilets, loan car, time dependent service.

There are still some douchery charges such as the compulsory BMW computer connection/scan that should be built into the price.

[Decky_Q]

A garage I worked in wanted everything used on a vehicle scanned onto the job sheet, this included quantities of cable ties, fasteners, drill bits, any sprays etc. Was a ball ache until I discover a barcode for 'misc' lol

[Robertb]

Decky_Q said:

A garage I worked in wanted everything used on a vehicle scanned onto the job sheet, this included quantities of cable ties, fasteners, drill bits, any sprays etc. Was a ball ache until I discover a barcode for 'misc' lol

I've a friend who always fills his washer fluid bottle before a service, and makes them refund it if they've charged for screenwash.

[Rough101]

Robertb said:

I've a friend who always fills his washer fluid bottle before a service, and makes them refund it if they've charged for screenwash.

I tried this once and the car came with a litre of Mercedes concentrate and a scraper in a little bag….

[av185]

Robertb said:

Decky_Q said:

A garage I worked in wanted everything used on a vehicle scanned onto the job sheet, this included quantities of cable ties, fasteners, drill bits, any sprays etc. Was a ball ache until I discover a barcode for 'misc' lol

I've a friend who always fills his washer fluid bottle before a service, and makes them refund it if they've charged for screenwash.

Your friend could go the whole hog and do the service changing the oil etc himself and see if they charge for that too.

[Watcher of the skies]

But oil is a service item.
Washer fluid is a consumable, like fuel.
I really resent being ripped off for a pint of screen wash. I do the same.

[Fox-]

vikingaero said:

the compulsory BMW computer connection/scan that should be built into the price.

This makes perfect sense though, it's just difficult to market without people thinking they are being ripped off.

The idea behind it is that to introduce menu prices, you also need a way to ensure that people are not double charged if they take two service items.

Consider for example, fixed pricing without this charge:

Service £300
Brake Fluid £100

Either of these taken on their own will include an element in the price to account for the workshop time involved in things as trivial as 'moving the car into the workshop' and 'plugging the car in'. They're included in those prices above. It's not free, you're paying for it, but it's built into that cost. Sensible.

Except how much is a service and a brake fluid change? £400 right? Now you're double paying for the time allocated to various tasks which will be performed only once regardless of how much work happens once the vehicle is in the workshop.

So instead, they do this...

Service £280
Brake Fluid £80
The extra charge you're complaining about: £20

So, on their own it's still £280+£20 = £300 for a service or £80+£20 = £100 for brake fluid. No change.

But get them completed at the same workshop visit and it's now £380, not £400.

Explained like this I think the charge is perfectly reasonable, but it's been around 20 years now and everyone still complains about it so I suspect the dealers just do a bad job of explaining what it's really about.

It makes perfect sense from a costing perspective.

Edited by Fox- on Tuesday 22 October 12:50

[ChevronB19]

Robertb said:

Decky_Q said:

A garage I worked in wanted everything used on a vehicle scanned onto the job sheet, this included quantities of cable ties, fasteners, drill bits, any sprays etc. Was a ball ache until I discover a barcode for 'misc' lol

I've a friend who always fills his washer fluid bottle before a service, and makes them refund it if they've charged for screenwash.

I have done this before. Screen wash bottle was utterly brimmed when it went in. They charged me for 2 litres. No apology, just a refund and a look like they were naughty schoolboys who got caught out.

[LeeM135i]

Had this with Mercedes a couple of years ago, cars on a service pack so includes all services + all extras + a courtesy car. Call comes in a couple of hours after I drop it off to say it needed a software update before they could update the service history on the car which costs £99+VAT. To me you plug it into a computer, press upload and walk away so £99+VAT was a bit strong but they wouldn't relent and it was pay or don't choice is yours.

[spookly]

My local Merc dealer have been doing that for years.
Back in 2013 (last time I had a new Merc serviced) it was IIRC about £350 for an E-class 1st service with courtesy car and faster service, or £240 if you dropped it off yourself and left it with them all day.

Biggest con was my local BMW dealer who wanted over £500 for a "fast lane" service for an X5 M50d. Website said my car will be straight in and out as soon as I arrive, and done within 90 minutes. What actually happened was I turned up and the service advisor told me it would take 3-4 hours for oil, oil filter and cabin filter change. I told him I could do it myself in 1/2 hour, and he'd better do that too or I'll have my £500 back and get it done elsewhere. They eventually got the car done in just over an hour. Then after being told I'd have to wait 14 weeks for a warranty fix with a courtesy car, I sold the BMW and won't be buying another (partly due to the local franchisee, and partly due to new BMW being so fugly).

[sherman]

spookly said:

My local Merc dealer have been doing that for years.
Back in 2013 (last time I had a new Merc serviced) it was IIRC about £350 for an E-class 1st service with courtesy car and faster service, or £240 if you dropped it off yourself and left it with them all day.

Biggest con was my local BMW dealer who wanted over £500 for a "fast lane" service for an X5 M50d. Website said my car will be straight in and out as soon as I arrive, and done within 90 minutes. What actually happened was I turned up and the service advisor told me it would take 3-4 hours for oil, oil filter and cabin filter change. I told him I could do it myself in 1/2 hour, and he'd better do that too or I'll have my £500 back and get it done elsewhere. They eventually got the car done in just over an hour. Then after being told I'd have to wait 14 weeks for a warranty fix with a courtesy car, I sold the BMW and won't be buying another (partly due to the local franchisee, and partly due to new BMW being so fugly).

Service would have been half an hour. Wash and hoover would acount for the the other half hour and shuffling the car about round the dealership.

[vikingaero]

Fox- said:

vikingaero said:

the compulsory BMW computer connection/scan that should be built into the price.

This makes perfect sense though, it's just difficult to market without people thinking they are being ripped off.

The idea behind it is that to introduce menu prices, you also need a way to ensure that people are not double charged if they take two service items.

Consider for example, fixed pricing without this charge:

Service £300
Brake Fluid £100

Either of these taken on their own will include an element in the price to account for the workshop time involved in things as trivial as 'moving the car into the workshop' and 'plugging the car in'. They're included in those prices above. It's not free, you're paying for it, but it's built into that cost. Sensible.

Except how much is a service and a brake fluid change? £400 right? Now you're double paying for the time allocated to various tasks which will be performed only once regardless of how much work happens once the vehicle is in the workshop.

So instead, they do this...

Service £280
Brake Fluid £80
The extra charge you're complaining about: £20

So, on their own it's still £280+£20 = £300 for a service or £80+£20 = £100 for brake fluid. No change.

But get them completed at the same workshop visit and it's now £380, not £400.

Explained like this I think the charge is perfectly reasonable, but it's been around 20 years now and everyone still complains about it so I suspect the dealers just do a bad job of explaining what it's really about.

It makes perfect sense from a costing perspective.

Edited by Fox- on Tuesday 22 October 12:50

I get that to some degree. But last year, my nephew hit a pigeon denting and breaking the grille - there was no other damage to the bodywork or radiator behind it. He left the car parked up at home whilst he returned to Uni and my sister booked it in to the local MINI dealer for replacement.

My sister had to travel for work and asked if I could drop off and collect the car (which I quite enjoy doing as I can be a bus wker for the day). On collection was the quoted price of labour and parts, and that dreaded computer charge. I queried whether it was right that the car needed to be plugged in for grille replacement when it had been serviced and plugged in 2 months before. A bit of toing and froing and the computer charge was dropped when I said I'd be leaving a negative review.

[Fady]

Robertb said:

Got an email from my local Mercedes main dealer advertising their servicing, offering various options.

I was surprised to see they are now charging a fee for a loan car (plus insurance charge) and a fee for collection and or/delivery. New one on me, or maybe I’m just not observant.

Is this commonplace now… Since when has this been a thing?

Had to pay for a loan car on my last two Mercedes services. Only added nominally to the overall cost, though I skipped the non compulsory insurance on the basis that I was only doing a 36 mile round trip home and back.

Other thing was - compelled to have to defer the service for a few weeks until they could actually provide the loan car. They only had several which were all booked out until then.

[carlove]

Kia charges a £10 “insurance” charge for a loan car, they do though tend to give very high spec cars, which is nice.

Vauxhall used to also charge about £10 for a loan car, but they used to give a base spec Viva (modern one), which wasn’t fun one time I used one during a heat wave with no A/C. Just after the first lockdown it went in for a repair and they charged a compulsory £7 sanitation charge, presumably to spray the steering wheel.