24000 miles service 530 e39

[Laingy]

Just had a quote back for a service on e39 530, 24000 miles and almost 3 years old. The quote is £1600 it includes a lot of other items that they say need doing. Does this seem excessive, seems huge to me. Apparently it needs the following done and nothing is under the warranty.

It needs the following:
2 liquid changes - Anti freeze and engine block
New Break Fluid
new Wiper blades
Front break pads and discs
Rear break pads (not discs)
A/C Belt and Poly B belt (fan belt) are cracking
A/C service - £154.99

All above including service and vat comes to £1663.21

[emicen]

Laingy said:

Just had a quote back for a service on e39 530, 24000 miles and almost 3 years old. The quote is £1600 it includes a lot of other items that they say need doing. Does this seem excessive, seems huge to me. Apparently it needs the following done and nothing is under the warranty. It needs the following: 2 liquid changes - Anti freeze and engine block New Break Fluid new Wiper blades Front break pads and discs Rear break pads (not discs) A/C Belt and Poly B belt (fan belt) are cracking A/C service - £154.99 All above including service and vat comes to £1663.21

Anti freeze and block fluid? One and the same methinks? £30 on fluid, hours labour max.

New brake fluid - why? 24,000 miles surely hasnt been that hard on it? In any case, that'll be under 2 litres and using finest quality fluid you'd still struggle to hit £40 + an hours labour.

New wipers would be under £30 from Halfords for good quality branded ones (never use Halfords own brand, scratch your windows big style). Fit them yourself.

Pads and discs. Front discs start at £24 +VAT a piece on Eurocarparts site (www.eurocarparts.com), rears start at £19 +VAT. Front pads £40 +VAT, rears £12 +VAT.

Drive belts - to purchase every drive belt listed on Euro Car Parts site for the E39 530 would cost you £43.00ish I doubt you need all of them

Aircon service = what exactly? Some compressed air to blow the leaves out the radiator and new pollen filters.

Doesnt seem like anywhere near £1600+ of work to me. Independant specialist and politely suggest the BMW service boys raffle themselves.

[Laingy]

Thanks for the reply, I could not believe it, Im off to an independent at those prices. Anyone recommend any in the west London area (Chiswick)

[stockhatcher]

i doubt with that mileage that your discs or rear pads need replacing. your fronts pads might, it depends if you've had them done recently. in any case i would estimate that half your quote is down to changing brakes ( which i don't think needs to be done)

front discs will easy last 40k miles and rear discs/pads 60k miles. front pads maybe 25k miles.

everyone talks about great 'independents' and how cheap they are , but lets see if your chosen independent is honest enough to tell you that the brakes don't need doing...

also be aware,your independent will charge much more for parts than you'd pay at ecp, and are not averse to taking twice as long to do a job as a dealer. which rather compromises thepromise of half price of a dealer labour rate.

finally have you tried negotiating on the quote with a dealer-you might be surprised with the outcome

All IMHO.

[Egbert Nobacon]

As its not yet three years old, why not just get the basic service done at BMW (phone around & haggle on the price) to maintain the service history and protect the residual value.

Then take it to a good independent to get the optional stuff done - if it needs doing at all - you might halve the labour costs and reduce parts costs by using oem kit.

The brakes are a favourite ploy to get you to spend - BMW told me that my 528 needed almost identical brake replacements to yours over a year ago now - I checked them myself & got another 11000 miles, including 6 laps of the Nurburgring, out of them before the wear indicator came on.

[dazren]

Have you got a break down of how they get to the figure?

From the items you mentioned I've had the follwoing work done on an 01 E39 M5:

Inspection 1 Service. Replace aircon microfilter(s), change brake fluid and top up steering fluid. Main BMW dealer with 15% discount off service labour charges as the car is 4+ years old. Came in at £395.

Pair of wipers, £31 fitted them myself.


One of the tricks garages do with brakes (aside from totally take the pi$$) is ask themselves if they expect them to last to the next scheduled service. If they don't expect them to, they say they need replacing, when they may not actually need replacing for another 7/8K miles.

DAZ

>> Edited by dazren on Thursday 1st June 21:30

[Laingy]

Thanks, have decided to pay for the service £450 and get a second opinion - from an independent. Spoke to a guy on the phone and he mentioned bmw are now in the process of offering all the extra e.g. brakes etc. when cars come in for service to try and maximise what they can out of the service time. He said he doubted if the brakes do need doing but they are being over cautious. I will let him have a look and see what he comes out with. The place was called gilberts, seemed very knowledgable.