sump plug washers mostly come as a sump plug these days. oil costs around 50p a ltr to get collected using the good stuff a full service and MOT on a ML350 done in my place costs around £350-400 all in including VAT. i believe we are doing at a good job. back in 98 a mate went into a BMW dealer in edinbro dressed in his casuals (scruffy cvnt) with his switch card to buy a brand new M3. i didnt end well for the first salesman that approached him. and, oh bollox. that answers that question.
Sounds expensive. Just paid £157 for a full front fork rebuild with oil, seals etc. rear tends to be 100-150.
I guess it depends on how you want to look at things, yes it's expensive it always has been. If your bikes in warranty I guess you don't have much of a choice, once out of warranty you can make your own call on whether you continue with main dealer servicing, independent or do it yourself. What I will say is Ducati UK and Italy have always been very good to me for out of warranty issues, I can think of one a few years ago where the bill would have been into the thousands, but it had been serviced/maintained by a very well known main dealer and everything was covered FOC out of warranty, would that have been the case if I'd have taken my business elsewhere, who knows? As for cars, don't get me started... I've had several German sports cars and what they charge for an oil change is beyond ridiculous, but some dealers will let you supply your own oil (like for like) and that'll knock £100 right off the bill. Saying that my current German motor has more cylinders and is another level up in terms of service costs, requires a yearly service that is close to 4 figures, cars only done 3.5K miles. However, this is cheap compared to say McLaren who want 3K a year for an extended warranty and 2K year for a service, and you'd be a fool not to have warranty and main dealer servicing on one of those. Not that I would ever be in a position to afford a McLaren in the first place.
I had my Multistrada in for its service at the same place. They must be working from a script. I was.phoned and told.the front pads needed changed I can do it for £250 he said, as the pads are £70 a side. Eh no thanks. Went online and new pads delivered to my home for just over £60 for both pairs. Your chain is dirty, do you want it cleaned itll be about £40. No it won't I'll do that myself. I thought I'd give them a chance to prove they were better than the previous dealer, or at least provide a better service. Can't say it was any different. Also annoying when I hear that technicians may not even be Ducati trained. I'll be using an independent from now on. He must be good as its the same one the dealership was using.
As an ex dealer manager there are some misconceptions here, yes the price for basic servicing seems exorbitant for just an oil change, we used to do a complete chassis check, every nut and bolt torqued, full electrical diagnostic sweep, strip clean and lube all brake calipers and components, grease every bolt we took out before refitting and a road test to make sure all was well with the bike, this was less than £200 and if it needed brake pads or anything else it was usually just the extra cost of components that were added. If they were doing things comprehensively there shouldn't be any additional labour charge for changing the pads as they'd already be out! The big shiny gin palaces that manufacturers insist on from the dealers cost a fortune to run and set up, unfortunately the same manufacturers also remove most of the profit from the sales of the bikes, if we sold a Scrambler for full money with no discount it would net a little over £500 to give you an idea, we could make a similar profit on a decent set of leathers and a helmet for a lot less outlay! As always there are dealers that do things really well and there are those that just seem to rely on their customers not really having a choice if they want to maintain the warranty. Regarding car dealers, they are a different kettle of fish, the most soul crushing experience I had recently was visiting the local BMW main agent, a huge gleaming monochrome edifice staffed by what felt like androids, I could feel my will to live being sapped with every minute spent in there, I can only imagine what the staff must feel like after being stuck in there for a working week! The biggest issue seems to be the whole "corporate" thing, they talk about customer satisfaction and service but it just ends up feeling like a hollow facsimile so they can make us all part of some spreadsheet analysts wet data dream, not helped by so many people in these corporations having meaningless jobs that only seem to exist to justify that job by any means. Sorry if that came across as a rant
Top marks for a truly excellent expression regarding cost - I must remember that one! I hadn't realised that bike dealers now added the "valet" bit into services - it seems to have been going on for years at main dealers for cars, and although I try to avoid it, if I ever do have to take a car to one I try to make sure it's reasonably dirty (to be fair, they do seem to clean the interior better than I do).
It’s daylight robbery. Just do it yourself from now on and save a fortune, plus you will know it’s done correctly.
Robbing gits !! Boils my piss !!! Desmo service on my dvt multi ..riders wanted just shy of £1000 ..same service ( no doubt more thorough ) £380 from a well respected independent.
One side of the coin, rarely the case nowadays, sadly unless you're dealing with proper craftsmen/people The other side of the coin much more usually experienced is, as others here have said, when you're treated as a mechanical incompetent by mechanically illiterate front desk staff.. My dash lit up a '2 Wheel Drive Only' warning. I looked up what it might be and the most probable likelihood seemed to be a blocked oil filter in the Haldex system used by Jaguar Land Rover, Volvo and Volkswagen Audi Group in their various 4x4 offerings a few years back. So I took it in to Range Rover. "We need to replace the transmission; it'll be 6 hours labour and £4,790.00". So I spent a little longer online, found a Haldex transmission specialist who only worked on those transmissions and nothing else. They offered a While You Wait service. I drove down to near Worcester, the car went up on their lift, they replaced the pump, filter, new fluid and sent me on my way 45 minutes later and charged £420..... !! They'd used the official/OEM parts and fluid. Where the piss-pumping dealer had got his time and money notions from remain a mystery.
Spoke to Harris Performance a couple of weeks ago about getting the Ohlins on my 1098 striped, cleaned inspected and rebuilt with new seals and oil. They quoted over the phone just shy of £200 so long as it didn't need bushes or other parts which seems reasonable. Aston is going in next week for its annual service at a well known respected independent, fixed price carried out to AM schedule is £900 for 5 year service which includes 11 ltrs of oil, again quite reasonable on that type vehicle. Brake pads are a bit pricey at about £1100 but at least they are big bastids and genuine AM parts specifically for carbon ceramic discs. Discs are scary stuff at £8500 for fronts and a bit less for rears.
My indie and i am sure others have the necessary software ,other wise i would not be so keen as that is after all, part of the service .
