Where do you have your car serviced, do you go to the main dealer or do you prefer a smaller independent company? When I first bought my car I took it to the main dealer for servicing, but they treated me so badly that I wouldn't go back and after that I drove it to a different county to a different Ford dealer to get work done. Now that it is out of warranty I use a local independent company and I am much happier with the service I get.

I rarely get my vehicle serviced at a garage, and certainly not at a main dealer. We do servicing at home and I take it to a local independant garage when work needs doing. I refuse to pay main dealer prices!

I agree with you. I never take it to a dealer unless it is under warranty. My husband works on our cars or we take it to an independent garage we have been using for years.

I think that if you take them on a car service then your warranty will be broken. I wonder if this is the case.

My husband takes care of our cars. Only once did we have to take it somewhere and it was a small garage.

Yes, I think that if it is under warranty you not supposed to take it elsewhere to get fixed. I cannot remember now thought for sure.

I think that used to be the case, but I don't think it is now. I think as long as you take it to a qualified person for servicing that is OK. At least that is what I was told, but that may be different in other countries. I really didn't like the way the main dealer treated me, they were very sexist and very unhelpful, I complained to Ford and they made them send a written apology, but I have never gone back to them.

It is good they apologized, but they shouldn't have behaved like that in the first place. I don't blame you for not wanting to go back.

It depends on the terms of the warranty of course. In my own experience, they aren't worth the paper they're written on. Both time I've had a serious issue with a car the warranty people have managed to worm out of paying for it. Teh last time it was because the garage had to replace a series of parts to fix the problem, but couldn't identify without a shadow of a doubt which part had been responsible for the probelm (probably wear over a number of them). As a result, the warranty company refused to pay out (6500!!!!), saying that there wasn't proof the work had been necessary.

My husband takes care of our cars and when living in the states, we always went to a small garage that was recommended by co-workers. We only go to the dealership if we have free service offered by them (maintenance or something). Otherwise, they are usually more expensive.

Our local dealership advertises a hire car to drive whilst yours is being worked on, which always sounds really attractive. In practice, they never seem to have one available at the time.

I have experienced that problem too, they advertise the replacement car but they make it almost impossible to get one, it is much the same with my car insurance when they offer a hire car. I don't bother with it anymore, I have kept my old car on the road as a run around so I use that instead.

Glad it's not just me then JOT! It makes me very cross actually, as it's false advertising as far as I'm concerned.

I service mine by myself if at all possible and if not then I will get a couple of buddies together and have a few beers and before you know it we have it working beter than ever.

Hmmm, a few beers and you'd think it'd have more problems than it started out with! Or perhaps you keep the beers to the side as a motivator, you get one when you're finnished?!

You got it GREEN. We put some at the bottom of a cooler and pour three or four bags of ice over them and by the time we are finished, our sweet rewards are nicely chilled.