Service!

[altocumulus]

First time in many years I'm having to consider paying for servicing - previous cars have all been "freebies".

I'm quoted £500+ to budget for intermediate and full servicing over the next 2 years - is that a sensible figure - usual labour and usual parts...

[FROSTYBALLS]

Have a look at https://www.toyota.co.uk/owners/service-mot-maintenance/servicing?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI6f-LpM3Y3QIVLbHtCh1dFguVEAAYASAAEgIpvfD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

The links to the Intermediate, Full and Full+ services under 'Choose the service that's  right for you' gives details of costs for each model.

[altocumulus]

58 minutes ago, FROSTYBALLS said:

Have a look at https://www.toyota.co.uk/owners/service-mot-maintenance/servicing?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI6f-LpM3Y3QIVLbHtCh1dFguVEAAYASAAEgIpvfD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

The links to the Intermediate, Full and Full+ services under 'Choose the service that's  right for you' gives details of costs for each model.

Thank you.

[Heidfirst]

1 hour ago, altocumulus said:

I'm quoted £500+ to budget for intermediate and full servicing over the next 2 years - is that a sensible figure - usual labour and usual parts...

How many miles per year will you be doing (i.e. will you need more than 2 services)?

I don't know where in Aberdeenshire you are but Arnold Clark Toyota (at least here in Glasgow but I assume their network wide) do a very cheap (compared to the official Toyota) service plan & which they assure me fully complies with Toyota's warranty requirements.

[altocumulus]

Just now, Heidfirst said:

How many miles per year will you be doing (i.e. will you need more than 2 services)?

I don't know where in Aberdeenshire you are but Arnold Clark Toyota (at least here in Glasgow but I assume their network wide) do a very cheap (compared to the official Toyota) service plan & which they assure me fully complies with Toyota's warranty requirements.

In two years I guess we'd just about scrape 10,000 miles.

 

We have an Arnold Clark close by - but for reasons we've chosen a garage further away in Elgin......!

[TheProfessor]

1 hour ago, altocumulus said:

We have an Arnold Clark close by - but for reasons we've chosen a garage further away in Elgin......!

I hear you there! My local Arnold Clark in Dundee, where I bought my previous car (a Kia), somehow managed to always return it with at least one more problem than it went in with, and rarely managed to fix the original problem. I could write pages and pages about how bad they are over the 3 years I had to deal with them, but I'll just summarise with "avoid at all costs".

[Heidfirst]

11 minutes ago, TheProfessor said:

I hear you there! My local Arnold Clark in Dundee, where I bought my previous car (a Kia), somehow managed to always return it with at least one more problem than it went in with, and rarely managed to fix the original problem. I could write pages and pages about how bad they are over the 3 years I had to deal with them, but I'll just summarise with "avoid at all costs".

I think that like all garages it depends upon staff & also I suspect upon brands imposing their expected standards (not saying that all T dealers are great always 1 or 2 laggards but mostly good - certainly better ime than Ford/Vauxhall).  I have used 2 of the local AC Toyota dealers for many years & they have been fine (before that I used Western at Sighthill in Edinburgh before they moved, again fine). The superb service supervisor at my preferred one has now moved to a 3rd local AC Toyota dealer so I may give that a try next.

& their service plan, which they assure me meets Toyota's standards, are significantly cheaper than the price of the official Toyota one - basically an intermediate & a full for the price of a regular Toyota full.

[altocumulus]

Sadly! There are only 3 Toyota franchises close by; that's Aberdeen at 22 miles, Elgin at 51 miles and Dundee at 83 miles.

There are two (!?) in Inverness, at 90 miles.

 

Rather captive markets in North Scotland.

[TheProfessor]

I've had 3 cars from the Dundee Toyota (Struans) and they've been nothing short of brilliant throughout the combined decade of ownership. They never messed anything up, ever, and always delivered more than I expected. My local Audi were similarly brilliant.

Avoiding my local Arnold Clark (Kia), after 5 years of complete hell, each and every time I had to have any kind of dealings with them whatsoever, with either my car, my wife's, or my parent's car, was one of the major considerations in purchasing my next car. I simply don't want anything to do with them ever again. If I detailed the list of major (not putting oil cap back on), dangerous (wheel not refitted securely), and extremely costly (returning car with no oil in it, ceasing engine) mistakes they made, during that time, I'd be here all day.

[Heidfirst]

34 minutes ago, TheProfessor said:

Avoiding my local Arnold Clark (Kia), after 5 years of complete hell, each and every time I had to have any kind of dealings with them whatsoever

Is the issue AC as a whole though, that particular outlet or Kia not enforcing standards (or do Kia have lower standards)?

Local AC Ford dealership - mechanics seemed competent but service experience/reception etc. not very good (possibly due to being a much larger, busier garage? ). Local AC Vx dealer a bit better but largely similar experience.

2 local AC Toyota dealers - mechanics seem competent but a far better, more personable service experience. Western used to be similar.

Even in W central Scotland there are not many independent Toyota dealers (1 in Helensburgh), most (6?) are AC.

[TheProfessor]

1 hour ago, Heidfirst said:

Is the issue AC as a whole though, that particular outlet or Kia not enforcing standards

I haven't experienced other Arnold Clark outlets, just the Balfield Road Dundee one, so I can't comment from personal experience. There are others in Dundee that handle other brands of cars.

A quick look on the reviews of Arnold Clark outlets around Scotland on Google, shows the Balfield Road one to be the worst I could find (3.5 stars average out of 5). The highest I could find was 4.1 stars average. By comparison, the Toyota and Audi outlets I mentioned above get 4.5 and 4.4 respectively. While a star might not seem much, it's actually worth 25% (given you can't award 0 stars)... 1=0%, 2=25%, 3=50%, 4=75%, 5=100%.

It's just the utterly astounding level of incompetence they have shown to me. Not just once, but almost every single time I've been there (which was often, given I was going there with 3 different cars at one point for services, repairs, etc). My first ever visit there was for some repair work covered by my insurance when something hit my Toyota Yaris while it was parked. They called me to say the car was ready to collect after two weeks. When I got there, they said work had only just started today, and the message they left on my voicemail (which I played to them) should have said they had just started and to apologise for the delay. Whatever, I had an nice courtesy car...

This is the best bit though... went to collect it a couple of weeks after that when they called me again and assured me it was complete. I joked on the phone with them that the last time they said this it wasn't finished... So they brought my car round for me, all nicely "hand washed" and vacuumed. Looked great (from the passenger side)! Until I walked around to the driver's side to get in. How the holy smeg on a bike anybody could have missed this while driving it to me, test driving it, hand washing it, signing off the repair, and so on... Just imagine my horror when the driver's side wing mirror is literally not present, there's just this black plastic hole with an electrical connector hanging down, dripping wet, and the side indicator is also hanging out by the wires, tapping against the side of the car in the breeze (this needed replacing as they'd broken the housing while removing it), plus the wheel arch and part of the wing was covered in silver duct tape (they called it masking tape). Took them another week to complete the job. And that was just the first visit. I've been there many tens of times since then, and this story right here is one of the times they did things really really well by comparison with what came after.

If I wasn't laughing about this right now I'd be crying lol!

[altocumulus]

Ouch!

 

To be honest we've not had that bad a service experience at AC - in general.

It was the Sales that badly damaged them with us a couple of years ago....Let's say neither the Toyota nor the AC survey were complimentary! (and yet no one contacted us to ask what the 'problem' was!)

[Heidfirst]

37 minutes ago, TheProfessor said:

A quick look on the reviews of Arnold Clark outlets around Scotland on Google, shows the Balfield Road one to be the worst I could find (3.5 stars average out of 5). The highest I could find was 4.1 stars average. By comparison, the Toyota and Audi outlets I mentioned above get 4.5 and 4.4 respectively. While a star might not seem much, it's actually worth 25% (given you can't award 0 stars)... 1=0%, 2=25%, 3=50%, 4=75%, 5=100%.

Which review site(s) were you using?

My favoured AC Toyota dealer gets 4.8 stars on Autotrader, my next option actually gets 4.9. They have 7 Toyota dealers within 40 miles of me, 1 has no reviews on Autootrader but all the rest are either 4.8 or 4.9.  AC as a whole gets 9.3 out of 10 on Trustpilot.

[TheProfessor]

10 minutes ago, Heidfirst said:

Which review site(s) were you using?

Just Google's own reviews. When I hit this search (on a desktop, anyway), it shows the reviews on the right hand side.

https://www.google.com/search?q=arnold+clark+balfield+road