Octavia servicing!

[woofy]

75k service booked in at the usual culprits for next week in Richmond, no loan cars until Xmas though which I'm going to make a song and dance about as it gets worse every year. They will give me a lift to my office, but I will be office bound which in my job doesn't work so well. $510 for that service which is a minor one, I remember them being around $300 so that inflation must have hit hard, especially the Zagames inflation. That's a 5 yr, man Petrol RS. I was tempted to ask what the belt change would cost, but still debating getting an independent to do that for me.

[brad]

That's silly money Woofy.

My guy would charge me $330 with a loan car if needed & I still think that's a bit rich but he looks after me so it's give & take.

[rjg]

That's silly money Woofy.

My guy would charge me $330 with a loan car if needed & I still think that's a bit rich but he looks after me so it's give & take.

You think that's bad, they quoted my $1200 for my 60k service.

I had to check with them twice that that didn't include a DSG service as mine's a manual. It didn't

[brad]

You think that's bad, they quoted my $1200 for my 60k service.

I had to check with them twice that that didn't include a DSG service as mine's a manual. It didn't

You'll find that they want to do the "one size fits all" tick & flick service list that includes a few things that in your service book aren't scheduled until the 90,000 or 105,000 service.

IIRC, when I had my 60k done the city dealers wanted $900-$1k; the local country dealer wanted $600 & the indepent wanted about $450-$500

[dArK5HaD0w]

You think that's bad, they quoted my $1200 for my 60k service.

I had to check with them twice that that didn't include a DSG service as mine's a manual. It didn't

wtf?!?!?
that's how much i got quoted from my dealer for a 60k + dsg service. mine's petrol.
is the diesel not chain driven like the TSI motors?

how could a diesel service, and a manual at that, cost so much?!?!

btw - i ended up going elsewhere, costing me $850.

[donweather]

What year is your RS, I can check if there were any sw. updates. If not then it's one less reason to take it to the dealer.

So is the dealer supposed to do software updates when servicing your vehicle? For free?

[rjg]

wtf?!?!?
that's how much i got quoted from my dealer for a 60k + dsg service. mine's petrol.
is the diesel not chain driven like the TSI motors?

how could a diesel service, and a manual at that, cost so much?!?!


btw - i ended up going elsewhere, costing me $850.

Mine is a petrol! I think the poor lady thought I was a bit rude as I had to ask 3 times how much.

Independents have come in much cheaper, Volks Home seem to be decent so they'll probably get the nod.

[Transporter]

So is the dealer supposed to do software updates when servicing your vehicle? For free?

I don't know if they have to do it or not. All I know that 99.9 car owners have no way of checking it or are completely unaware.
When I do them, I charge for them, because it usually takes 1-2 hours, depending which ECU. Since, I'm mobile and working at customer's place, I always show them when there are any updates available.

The reasons for not doing the sw updates on every car that goes through the workshop, could be: Not enough time, a risk that the sw update would go bad and more time wasted, not enough qualified mechanics. Other reasons I rather don't post here.

[Umai Naa!!]

You won't get software updates at a dealership unless theres a fault which requires an update to remedy it.

Also, unless it's under warranty, you'll get charged for it.

[Transporter]

But, if there was no need to address the issue, there wouldn't be a software update.

[Umai Naa!!]

Reason was, technicians were scanning cars at the service, as you do, and were dumping software updates into them without the customer knowing. Sometimes, the updates change the way certain aspects of the car appear or function which made some customers unhappy, and as you know, it can't easily be reversed.

[Transporter]

Fair enough.

[kralster]

...or take it to independent workshop, like Camden GTI.
What year is your RS, I can check if there were any sw. updates. If not then it's one less reason to take it to the dealer.

Mine is 4/12 build. 15k service was done in March of this year. If you could check if my car needs any updates that would be great.

[brad]

But, if there was no need to address the issue, there wouldn't be a software update.

Not neccessarily.

When we had the diesel 4sp captiva it developed a vibration at 1800rpm-2000rpm. It sounded like a loose heatshield but was actually the torque converter not being able to decide if it wanted to lock-up or not (something like that). The cure was a software update. The downside was that it used about 20% more fuel.

Only a minor percentage of diesel auto Captivas developed this problem, so it would be foolish to automatically apply the software patch to all diesel autos if there wasn't a problem.

[Transporter]

Not neccessarily.

When we had the diesel 4sp captiva it developed a vibration at 1800rpm-2000rpm. It sounded like a loose heatshield but was actually the torque converter not being able to decide if it wanted to lock-up or not (something like that). The cure was a software update. The downside was that it used about 20% more fuel.

Only a minor percentage of diesel auto Captivas developed this problem, so it would be foolish to automatically apply the software patch to all diesel autos if there wasn't a problem.

...maybe they stuffed up something there.
I always ask the software engineer whether the sw update is to be applied to all or only if there was a fault. And so far, the answer was "yes if it says update available, it's safe to update".

I've the first hand experience of my own, when we had the sw update done on our Jeep, it was part of the recall and it changed the car dynamics so badly that we ended up trading it on the Touareg in 2008. Yeah, whole recall was a joke.
Not the case with Autologic though.