Servicing costs and self servicing

[Owdgit]

My car has a full dealer/garage service book.
I'm appalled at the prices they charge to service our cars.
I have all the kit and ability to do it myself.
My question is would it really adversely affect any sale price if I were to do it myself?
I would obviously have it all documented and receipts for parts etc.
I just hate being ripped off and always it's in the back of my mind "have they really done the work they say they have?"

[tiglon]

Might take longer to sell it privately, or get less money from a dealer.

How much more does it cost per year to get a dealer to service it vs doing it yourself?
How long will you keep it?
What will the likely value be by then?

The older a car gets, the less financial sense it makes to take it to a dealer.

[B21]

I think as long as it’s got a full service history it’s good to go..

Maybe do a little simple spreadsheet with the out of sequence / non maintenance items for the record

[smorris_12]

Unless you've got something worth serious money you're hard pushed to lose more money on resale value with home written service stamps than it costs to take it to a main dealer.

[Mr Tidy]

I don't think people expect to find a car over 10 years old with full BMWSH, although my E91 came with it when I bought it at 12 years old!

Mine do get serviced by a BMW Indy, but I wouldn't necessarily be put off buying an owner serviced car privately as you can usually tell if it was owned by an enthusiast. And anyway the N52 is pretty bulletproof.

Sort of related to another thread I'm not sure I'd buy an M that had been owner serviced though.

[matsmith749]

There is a lot of liars out there though, I know I would look for some sort of official record (garsge) not necessarily a main dealer’s once the car is over 5 years old.

You would get shipped from the search without ever having a conversation from me, unless the car is so unique you are the only seller…. Or super cheap.

People say they might not care, but when push comes to shove we always look for full service history & value cars with it higher.

Modern cars are horrible & complicated. I want to buy one from someone who had the money to cut no corners.

[Pondrew]

My question is would it really adversely affect any sale price if I were to do it myself?
I would obviously have it all documented and receipts for parts etc.

I would say NO. On a 3 year old car, maybe, but not as they age.
As long as you can prove the work has been done with receipts and dates, then it has a full service history IMO.
Some people want a full 'main dealer' history, but I'm sure it's so they have confidence that the previous owner serviced it 'with no expense spared', which apparently shows some kind of higher intelligence.
I do most of the servicing on our Z4 and the other cars (just get local garage to do oil changes as I can't be arsed; too messy without a ramp). I keep all receipts with dates and fill in the service book with dates, so they correspond. My cars are serviced better and much much cheaper than any main dealer would.

[MikeyH]

My car came from a z4 forum owner of 8 years and had meticulously kept records and receipts of everything he had done either himself or by a garage. This is what attracted me to the car and sometimes I see an old thread and he crops up. I know what was done, when and the cost, it’s a story of my car’s life. How many dealers put that amount of information on their records.

[Christopher72]

I do most of the servicing on our Z4 and the other cars (just get local garage to do oil changes as I can't be arsed; too messy without a ramp).

I still havent found the dipstick...

[Pondrew]

I still havent found the dipstick...

It was a (very expensive) option on the E89, so most don't have one. If you did have one, it would be on the opposite side of the engine bay to ours!

[Silverstar]

You could do all the work yourself except the oil change, take it to your local garage just to do that and get the book stamped and hay presto you have a garage service history for around £30 labour. Probably worth it not to be bothered to arse around getting under the car when you don’t have a ramp!

[Chippie]

If you plan on keeping the car long term then I can’t see a problem with doing the servicing yourself, I tend to keep mine long term, last one I had 14 years from new, current one is 6 years and counting and the Zed 4 years and no plans on changing, I don’t do many miles in them, generally 4k to 6k per year, the e89’s are getting old now so I can’t really see it affecting resale values, just keep documentation as proof, I keep a folder which has paperwork and receipts for everything that’s been done and every part fitted.

[smorris_12]

In the end cars are luck of the draw; FSH is a very, very narrow band. I happened to be in a small garage 7/8 years ago and watched as the owner/mechanic filled an E90 320d with 10w40 semi-synth. So FSH but a ticking time bomb of a turbo. And if it went bang 18 months later the owner would just write it off as one of those things. Bad luck and all that but they'd never think they hadn't been doing the right thing.

In fact, over the years I've concluded that one of the worst things that can happen to cars is to take it to a garage. Garage mechanic isn't a particularly high end job most of the time (and I've got friends who are mechs.) They're not paid well, in the larger garages they have a stupid schedule so everything is rushed and, frankly, many don't know much about anything automobile related. In other words, cars survive despite garages, rather than because of them.

I reckon most main dealers do try and do a good job. My mother has a 35,000 mile 53 plate Fiesta with FMDSH. It's in really excellent condition (partly because it lives in the garage) but it's still worth buttons despite having spent thousands in servicing to get redundant replacement cambelts. In fact, the one thing that makes it even more worthless is that because of the lie of the one lady owner, the clutch feels paper thin (steep driveway to negotiate!)

And that's another thing. Servicing only really keeps on top of the engine innards. So many other parts of a car will just fail apropos of nothing. The MoT keeps an eye on important ones and no amount of servicing will stop an alternator randomly throwing in the towel. If anything owning cars is nothing more than a game of pass the parcel where you can hear it ticking.

Has a car had oil changes? Yes. Fine. Hopefully it was the right oil. Beyond that; pfft, buy on condition and sacrifice a goat.

[raymond.harper]

If you buy genuine BMW parts, keep the receipts, write up exactly what you did, and download a BMW Service list of what to do, then I see no problem especially if you change the oil on a more regular basis than is advised. When I do my own servicing as well as the oil change and filters, I take off all four wheels and measure brake pad and disc thickness, check all the suspension for wear, grease all the hinges, treat the roof rubbers, and then write it all up in great detail.

[coldel]

My father and brother are both car mechanics, so makes no sense to take it to any garage and a service is one of the easiest things mechanically you ever have to do. What I do is keep a project log on a couple of car websites of all the work, showing pics of stuff going on the car, etc. Every car I sold on the buyer commented on the project log being a big influence on the sale in that they could look back at me showing all the work done. Especially in the days now where if a car ends up at a dealer they shred any paper work, the days of 'folder full of receipts' is unfortunately dwindling.