Hi,

I’ll ty and keep this brief but was wondering what people’s thoughts were

I have a VW up I bought from a VW dealer, really love the car to bits but in 5 years once I pay it off I want to trade it in and buy a 3 year old, VW ID EV as I’m determined my next car will be an EV and the ID looks awesome and should be cheaper than a Leaf.

Now the question… If my intention is to trade in the Up, would I be better getting VW to do all the servicing (who are expensive) or would it not make any difference to the trading in value if it was serviced fully at Halfords or my local garage…?

Opinions appreciated, thanks

I cant really answer your question, but from experience I wouldn't let Halfords touch my car with a barge pole.

quote:

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Originally posted by AntonUK
I cant really answer your question, but from experience I wouldn't let Halfords touch my car with a barge pole.

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I always like to see "Full dealer service history" on a car advert if that helps. though i'd go for "full VW specialist garage history" too.

I agree with both comments above.

I'd not use a Halfords Autocentre and "full main dealer history" always looks good. That said I prefer to do my own servicing and the repairs I can do myself rather than pay out for a main dealer or garage to do the work. Whenever I do the work myself I keep all receipts for the parts used and make careful notes of the dates, mileage etc.

I do however use a VW specialist next door to my work for MoTs and some repair work. They know the cars, don't take the wee and prices are fair so I'm happy with them.

Probably worth looking around your area to see if you can find an independant VW specialist and check out their prices. Ultimately if the service schedule's been followed the car will be in as good a condition as it can be (assuming you're not a race ace).

Thanks for the comments.

My only wish is to get the best price for the car when I trade it in and if dealer servicing going to influence that which it sounds is the case then I'll do it.

I did notice on Halfords site that they wanted £30 extra to use a premium oil (not even the oil VW specifically says to use) and considering the correct oil costs me £24 for 5 litres and the Up uses just 4, I did think what the hell are Halfords wanting to put in my engine?? oh well suppose I best bite the bullet and get VW to do it...

If I was keeping the car I was just going to service it originally myself using the same parts as VW use.

Thanks.

Don't know if your Up is petrol or diesel. I've run VAG group TDI cars for many years (some company cars and some private). One of the things I've always done is chnaged the diesel fuel filter annually using a genuine OEM filter. Easy job and judging by the state of the ones that come out well worth doing too. I've changed petrol fuel filters in the past and can't see it being any less beneficial for the engine either. Neiter main dealers or indpendant garages do it unless you specifically tell them too. Most manufacturers seem to recommend replacing them around 4 years or 40k miles.

a reputable independent "VW specialist" is probably the best option if you have one up your way - some of the guys I work with do that down this way and haven't had any issues
(haven't used them myself as I always have cars too old to care about that stuff )

If the car is under warranty bear in mind it will need oem parts to maintain the warranty. I would always use a decent local VW specialist over a main dealer. The local main dealers round here are absolutely painful (Arnold Clark mostly) they even told me it's normal to have the oil level to drop after the first few miles and I'd need to buy a top up of oil for my golf when the oil warning light came on. they soon gave in when I asked where does the oil go then?

Our work van lease company use the cheapest possible servicing places and even they now refuse to send them to halfords service centres due to poor service. They even managed to 'lose' a transit van for 2 days.

As a (vague) comparison my friend has had Mercedes cars for the last decade or so. They get them serviced and maintained at an MB specialist, and they've never encountered any value loss when it comes to trade in. And certainly with Mercs there is a huge amount of money to be saved even just using a specialist.

Just make sure (as mentioned) that they use OEM parts, but most specialists do tend to make a point of it.

tbh it had not even occurred to me that there may be other VW specialist garages in the area (what happens when you only service your own cars...) I shall look into it, already a few have appeared on Google

thanks for all the good advice

Why not get the benefits and best of both worlds?

Get the main dealer to service it but at the price a local independent garage would charge. Just follow the T&Cs of VW's price match promise;

https://www.volkswagen.co.uk/owners/servicing/price-match

Phil

oh right, thanks I didn't even know about that