Service/Cam belt change

[Pa55at140]

Hi everyone,

I recently bought a Passat TDI SE 140 and the car is now coming up to 52000 miles & the computer panel reads: "service in 700 miles", the car has FSH from the previous owner, what's the cheapest & safest way of having it serviced (oil & filter & cambelts maybe), I know the main dealers charge an arm & a leg for servicing, any ideas please?

I've heard that there are smaller garages that are VW authorised & can keep your service history intact any advice will be greatly appreciated.

By the way I live near Guildford & work in London so any garages in & around those areas would be good.

Cheers

[Stuart W]

As regards safeguarding your warranty you can have your car serviced at any garage provided it sticks to the manufacturer's schedule.

At least that's the theory, but if there's any quibbles then perhaps you wouldn't expect VW to be particularly sympathetic to any warranty claims if you have used an independent garage, and could be more akward as regards borderline issues if you haven't used them, irrespective of the strict legal position.

If your warranty is not relevant (ie if the car is more than three years old) then obviously having it done by an authorised dealer is less of an issue.

Obviously if reselling an FSH from an authorised dealer will look better than a service book stamped by Phil Mitchell Motors, but obviously once the car has got to a certain age/mileage it won't make a lot of difference to the car's value where it's serviced.

I've got a full VW history, but since I'll be well over 70,000 by the next service I'm not sure if I'll use them again.

As regards smaller garages being VW authorised, I'm not so sure about that, but there are garages which specialise in VWs but I don't think they're recognised officially by VW, and as with any garage, you have to weigh up factors such as reputation, price, convenience, etc.

52,000 seems a bit early for the timing belt (I think VW say 80,000, although of course it wouldn't do any harm to get it changed early).

My last car was a Mondeo, and the only thing I got Ford to do was change the timing belt, on the basis that if the belt popped it would ruin the engine, thus I thought it better to trust this job to a main dealer.