Maintaining your own vehicle, but what about FDSH and resale?

The wife's Freelander 1 is getting to the point where I am forever replacing parts. As a result we are contemplating a 2/3 year old Freelander 2 sometime later this year. We purchased the current vehicle 10 years ago when it was only 3 years old. Back then I always had garages do the work and kept the book stamped.

As the vehicle aged and more and more stuff started going wrong, I rolled up my sleeves and got stuck in. It's at the point where I actually don't mind repairing it. The list of things is endless, but I wasn't bothered about stamps as the vehicle is worth so little now.

The reason for my post is that I am keen to find out from others who fix their vehicles, what age was the vehicle when you started maintaining it yourself. If quite new did the fact that not having dealer stamps in the log book matter. Did you always say that you'd keep the vehicle so long, that dealer stamps didn't matter?

I do all my own, while the landy is fast approaching 20 years old my Audi is only 4 and I do all that too, just done timing belt (with all genuine Audi parts) and brake disks (Brembo) this weekend. As I normally keep vehicles for 10 years or so, what I lose by not having a stamped service book is a lot less than what I would have paid if done by a garage (Audi would probably charge somewhere like £800 /£900+ but cost me probably just over £250 as I also changed alternator over-run pulley, tensioner and aux belt at the same time). Additionally I know it has all been done properly and not rushed.

X1 on costs v service history. Once mileage is well north of 50k the service history become a bit academic. My landy is 33 years old and doesn't have a service book! When it comes to the sale I doubt it'll matter.

If you keep the receipts for the parts it wont be a problem

Service history doesnt realy make a car worth any more in my opinion ,you need to look at it and if its rough its rough a nice stamped book wont c hange that !

Another one who does all his own.

Kwakerman said:

Additionally I know it has all been done properly and not rushed.

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and the above is the reason why - we got bored of garages not doing what they had been paid to do, and the mess that creates. Or saying that the brakes are knackered when they have over a millimeter left on the discs, AND being MADE to sign a disclaimer before we can have OUR vehicle back.

This is why we don't care about "service history" - just cos the book is stamped, does not mean it has been done.

I think full dealer history is only really applicable for pristine vehicles that are (mostly) under the age of about 5 years old.

Past 5 years old a decent independent garage is perfectly acceptable if you don't do your own spannering. Just keep your receipts.

Vehicles between 10 years old to about 30 years old generally have a rough time. After about 30 years old they start to become classics and might even rise in value. By that time FSH is a pretty rare thing to find. By that time (as it should be for vehicles of all ages) it is all about condition - condition - condition...

I'd agree with the previous comments.
These days I'm not able to do all my own servicing, sadly, I'm a bit too long in the tooth for scrambling about in the gutter under a vehicle, I can still do some standing up bits though, so I trust and pay the local garage to do the work for me.
I keep all the receipts for any major work and replacement parts, and he does still stamp my service book for the annual services. I keep all the MoT test printouts including the refusals and advisories. IMHO they provide a better history than just the dealer stamps.

From what has been said and the fact that we seem to keep vehicles until they are destined for the scrap yard doing the work of a newish vehicle is something I shouldn't concern myself with. As to garages not doing a great job, I only came across an example of such thing at the weekend when I had to drop the prop shaft off to replace the rear prop bearing. It was only replaced 2 years ago by a local garage. They had used a cheap one as the bearing has no manufacturing stamps on it, had forgotten to fit one of the dirt protectors and when they took the old one off they cut right through the old bearing and left a nice 2-3mm fine kerf grinder cut on the shaft. They obviously didn't even bother trying to use a puller as I took the front one off and that has been on ever since we bought the vehicle. So that means it's 10 years old.

They had the cheek to write on the invoice. Rear prop bearing £97:00 discounted to £48:00. It was a budget £25 inc vat job that they fitted.

So your point regarding garages not always doing a great job has been reinforced.

one of my students just bought a motor bike from a big main dealer from these parts. fully main dealer service history and a promise of a full service before delivering the bike.

he came round to show it to me the tyres were almost flat it was over filled with oil the clutch had no fluid in it the brakes were on metal need i go on

biketeacherdave said:

one of my students just bought a motor bike from a big main dealer from these parts. fully main dealer service history and a promise of a full service before delivering the bike.

he came round to show it to me the tyres were almost flat it was over filled with oil the clutch had no fluid in it the brakes were on metal need i go on

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IMHO, Tis what they do - they want your money, and once they have, they are not interested.

hence, we are staying away. to em

Well, this is an empirical question. If you look at the prices of cars for sale on e.g. Ebay and Autotrader, are the ones advertising a full service history fetching better prices than the ones that don't? Whenever I look, it's hard to discern a pattern. It's not as if FSH vehicles are consistently going for 10 or 20% more, or anything simple like that.
I'd certainly agree that it's worth checking carefully anything that claims to have been garage serviced. My friend's 2004 Defender whose previous owner proudly displayed its main dealer service history seemed to have had zero maintenance done on it in its life. The filter cannisters were rusty and didn't look like they'd been changed anytime recently, the gearbox and axle oil were in poor condition and very dirty, breather pipes had disconnected themselves and seemed to have been that way for a long time judging by the dirt build up, and lots more.

its both interesting and frightening that quite a few people have issues with so called "garage" servicing.

talk about buyer beware... never more relevant than today it would seem

Given what the newspapers reported this week regarding garages clocking vehicles legally, I will make sure the next time I purchase a vehicle I see every MOT certificate associated with the vehicle. I suspect the devious ones will have readjusted it at the time of every MOT so that you cannot detect a tweak has been done, but worth asking just in case they were not clever enough to do that.

When I bought mine, over 10yrs ago, I did so for two reasons. I really loved the Defender and wanted one and I wanted something to maintain myself.
To keep a record of the services I made up a sheet on the computer with the main service items on.

I keep them in a folder which is now full of these. Also, all MOT certificates, all receipts for service parts and maintenance parts, photographs from the forecourt when I was looking at it initially, deposit paid receipt, final payment paperwork etc. I'll need a new folder for the rebuild paperwork!

I've no intention of selling her, so this was just for my own record. Possibly slightly scary when you think about it.
However, if you met me you'd think I was perfectly normal.

We do most of our servicing and repairs, we have four Landies in the family, three D2 V8's and a Defender CSW 200Tdi.

Given that most Landies are 'nut and bolt' construction and the full workshop manuals and parts lists are available if you look online, it is only facilities and mechanical ability that stops you doing it yourself.

Resale value is not a consideration for us, but longevity and reliability certainly is.

Spares have never been so cheap for Landies and dealers are only really interested in the Range Rover brigade who have deep pockets.

Peter

In view of the comments made above, it is going to be an interesting fight when the law makers decide only registered professionals can work on motor vehicles used on public roads.

I do most of the servicing myself except for difficult jobs. I keep a folder for each vehicle where I keep all receipts for parts and oils etc. My Defender is 26 years old. I don't think anyone would expect to see a stamped service record for that.

Although I do most of the servicing and repairs on my own vehicles there are occasionally times when I have to use garages due to time not being available. I must be lucky as I have one garage for the taxis and another one for the Land Rover. Both friendly places, do a good job and never overcharge. Is this a record? Must point out - these are not dealers, they are small independent concerns.