Information on Loughborough

Car Servicing in Leicestershire

Posted on 09/10/2007
P. Klein

garage mechanicMotorists in Loughborough, Shepshed and the rest of the Leicestershire are being urged to do their homework prior to their putting their car in for its service.

Leicestershire Trading Standards is cautioning car owners to get a list for what is offered by each garage to enable them to compare what is going to be done and make an informed decision. This is because it was found after a survey that some garages could not give a schedule of the items that they would check. A typical service can require over fifty items to either be checked or replaced. The survey also asked garages if a new car within its warranty period should be serviced by the manufacturer. Following a legal case the warranty is maintained, whoever does it, as long as the service is done to the manufacturers specification and using the parts recommended. However half the garages that were surveyed incorrectly said that a car under warranty had to be serviced at the main dealer for the car in order to maintain the warranty.

By being able to shop around you can save a considerable amount of money, a survey by the Office of Fair Trading found that dealers prices were typically £80 higher than an independent garage. It is estimated that the intervention of the OFT in ensuring that cars could be serviced by garages other than the franchise dealer will have saved private car owners about £16M per year, fleet operators have potential saved over £100M.

The survey by Leicestershire Trading Standards did not "test purchase a service however it will form part of a potential survey concerning vehicles being taken by Trading Standards for servicing to certain garages.

List of garages that do car servicing.