Author: Bash D Bishop
Subject: How much for a service?
Posted: 05 Feb 2014 at 9:46pm
My wife's Kuga was due its first service so I called around for a quote. First off I tried to largest dealer group in the area, Peoples Ford in Edinburgh. When the service receptionist told me that it would be £199 I told her she was having a laugh as that was an absurd amout for what amounts to little more than an oil and filter change. She immediatley offered to take 10% off the price. I still refused to book as even £179 was excessive.
Subject: How much for a service?
Posted: 05 Feb 2014 at 9:46pm
My wife's Kuga was due its first service so I called around for a quote. First off I tried to largest dealer group in the area, Peoples Ford in Edinburgh. When the service receptionist told me that it would be £199 I told her she was having a laugh as that was an absurd amout for what amounts to little more than an oil and filter change. She immediatley offered to take 10% off the price. I still refused to book as even £179 was excessive.
My next call was to the Dalkeith Ford Centre. This is much smaller than Peoples but also about 15 minutes closer to home. They quoted a much more reasonable £129 so I booked it in.
Today I took the car in and as I live about 15 miles from the garage I decided to wait. The facilities were exceptionally basic. 3 plastic chairs and a table with some brochures on it was all that was available. No drinks machine or water was available. I tried to visit a couple of local cafes but as I had our West Highland Terrier with me they would let us in!
Thankfully they managed to do the service quite quickly and I was on my way home. But not for long. I noticed the engine management light was on so I about turned and went back. It turned out they had disconnected a plug to make it easier to change the oil filter but although they had put it back they hadn't cleared the error codes. A few minutes with the IDS connected cleared the codes and I was on my way again.
All my main dealer experiences in recent years have been with Land Rover, BMW/Mini and Audi so the Ford Main Dealer experience has been a bit of a culture shock.![Tongue]( "Tongue")
