good service centers in sydney

[mk5 toy]

hey guys and gals im looking for a good cheap place to take my car in sydney for service never been a real lover of dealers plus im saving for mods

[Manaz]

Mods aren't a reason to avoid dealer servicing...

[mtm tcca]

hey mk5 toy,

you looking for a cheap or good place, or just cheap and good

[Mischa]

stay away from chatswood classic cars in my experience.

[gtimk5]

Best to check out the reccomended section up near the top of the forum menu.
Welcome to the forum as well!!
Andrew

[mk5 toy]

thanks for the advice guys its not the mods thats keeping me away from the deallers its the price and that other dealers i have been 2 in the past treat people like pieces of sh*t but yea im after a cheap and good place thanks again

[DUB 20V]

thanks for the advice guys its not the mods thats keeping me away from the deallers its the price and that other dealers i have been 2 in the past treat people like pieces of sh*t but yea im after a cheap and good place thanks again

i would say talk to mtm tcca on here, they do awesome work and very well priced..

[GT15VW]

European Autotech

[SoVeReIgN]

Seb @ euroautomotive near parra.

[fuzion]

Seb @ euroautomotive near parra.

i concure

[Manaz]

thanks for the advice guys its not the mods thats keeping me away from the deallers its the price and that other dealers i have been 2 in the past treat people like pieces of sh*t but yea im after a cheap and good place thanks again

I've had mixed experience with dealers.

I bought my first Subaru from Tom Kerr at West Ryde, and had the car serviced there for the 5 years I owned it. They were great (both when I bought the car, and during all servicing). Subaru services are pretty much set price, and I knew what the servicing was going to cost before I bought the car. 50,000km service on a Subie is mildly expensive, 100,000km is very expensive ($1200+ because the timing belts get changed, and being a boxer engine, there's one on either side of the engine - I sold the car with ~80,000km on the clock and warned prospective buyers of the cost they had coming up), the 25,000 and 75,000 services were ~$350, the 12,500, 37,500 and 62,500 services were ~$200.

I had a different sales experience with Tom Kerr when we replaced the Liberty with out current MY05 Outback, so we bought from Denlo Subaru at Parramatta instead (the car was right at 50,000km, so we had them throw in the 50,000kn service with the sale), and I've been happy with their servicing thus far (they're also a VW service centre) - again the pricing's fairly set for the servicing for a Subie, so I know roughly what to expect.

I owned a Suzuki Baleno GTX before that, and the Suzuki servicing was done at the Parramatta Ford service centre (another shared service centre), and they were shocking. I took the car in for one service knowing it had a faulty headlight, but when I picked it up the report said "checked all lights are operational". I pointed that out, and they accused me of trying to score a free headlight bulb from them! After that argument, I paid the bill, and drove the car out the driveway. It seemed OK, until I tried to select 2nd gear and couldn't do so - so I drove around the block in 1st, and asked them what the hell was going on. They then told me "the clutch must have suffered catastrophic failure" as I drove out the driveway, and it was fine when they test drove it after the service. I bet it was - until the same moron who just ticked the "check lights" box without checking the lights decided to dump the clutch a few times on the test drive. That little incident ended up costing me another $1,000 for parts and labour to change the clutch, and I never went back.

The car I had before that was a Nissan Exa (the last model available here, with a heavily modified CA18DET engine), and it was serviced by Nissan up at West Ryde, and they were fine by me even though the engine was an imported JDM one I'd had retro-fitted into the car after the original died (I knew it would when I bought it, I already had the CA18DET on order).

The other bad dealer service experience I've had was with Holden at Parramatta. They serviced my wife's Astra a few years ago, and I noted to them the plastic panel surrounding the rear numberplate was loose, and could they please fix it. The way the fixed it was to drive a 2cm long screw through one of the holes in the corner of the numberplate through the 0.5cm thick plastic panel, and then in until the head came to a rest on the numberplate - leaving the entire numberplate and plastic panel sitting ~1.5cm up off the metalwork underneath (and damaging the paint with the tip of the screw in the bargain!). They also rectified a blown head gasket on the Astra at the same time, which failed again within 2 years, and they've refused to honour the warranty on the work even though the car has done less than 10,000km since the job.

After all that, I do now use non-dealer servicing for the Astra, but not for the Outback (Subaru have never let me down), and I don't know what I'll do with the Golf if I get it - I suspect stick with dealer servicing because I've had a good run with Denlo service.

Regardless, if I buy a nice car, "cheap" won't be how I judge a service centre - maybe "cheaper" than others, but I'm wary of paying for cheap service and getting exactly that...