Servicing in Cambridge area ??and other questions

[2pt joe]

Anybody local to Cambridge that can recommend someone to use ?

Our 03 1.9 TDi is on 114,000 and is showing a need for service. The belt is due as well.

Some garages are saying 350 ish for a belt and pulleys with a service on top.
£100 for a 10,000 miles servc eor £240 ish for a 20,000 mioes service . Aparently you can choose service intervals ?????? do it every 10,000 or 20,000 miles ?
Bit new to Audi's so any advice welcomed.

Thanks

[paul b]

Anybody local to Cambridge that can recommend someone to use ?

Our 03 1.9 TDi is on 114,000 and is showing a need for service. The belt is due as well.

Some garages are saying 350 ish for a belt and pulleys with a service on top.
£100 for a 10,000 miles servc eor £240 ish for a 20,000 mioes service . Aparently you can choose service intervals ?????? do it every 10,000 or 20,000 miles ?
Bit new to Audi's so any advice welcomed.

Thanks

Woah woah woah!

Forget the 20k service intervals... its a longlife interval. Running for 20k on the same oil is bonkers in my opinion! Best sticking to 10k intervals if you want to look after your camshafts.

£350ish for a belt, pulleys and water pump plus the service sounds about the norm to me. If you look here, this is what I had to do when doing all this work myself. There is a lot of work involved to do it correctly. As you can see mid-way through the timing belt change it looked like the car was being scrapped!

In regards to what I said about camshafts, you may have a PD engine. When they aren't serviced on time or with the correct oil, the camshafts can wear very quickly. The oil is expensive, I've just acquired some Millers XFE-PD at about £35 for 5 litres. If you want the Shell alternative... you're looking at about £70...

So don't skimp on the oil, personally I'd purchase the correct oil myself and get them to put it in if you can't do it yourself. Any oil that says it meets VW spec 505.01 on the back will be fine (not 505.00!).

[2pt joe]

Thanks.
I can do it myself easy enough , the service that is , but i wont have any history when i come to sell it and that makes a differnce i think.
I'm hoping to find a good garage that i can trust in the cambridge area. I know Vindis will do it right but i also know they'll know how to insert a bill in my backside correctly as well if you get my drift.

[paul b]

Thanks.
I can do it myself easy enough , the service that is , but i wont have any history when i come to sell it and that makes a differnce i think.
I'm hoping to find a good garage that i can trust in the cambridge area. I know Vindis will do it right but i also know they'll know how to insert a bill in my backside correctly as well if you get my drift.

I'll be honest with you, if you can service it yourself then do it, forget all this stamp business, it doesn't make any difference to the resale value at all.

I was trading in my Merc A160 CDI for the A6, it had 32k on the clock. I knew it would be going within the next couple of months because the wife wanted a more solid car for her 60 mile round trip for work each day. It needed a service, so I thought I'd sent it to Merc to keep its full dealer service history, hoping it would add to its resale value. Went in to Merc, came out with a £500 bill! All they did was adjust the handbrake and change the oil and pollen filter. They didn't even change the oil or air filter! But it was valeted and washed for free so I guess Merc thought it was acceptable!

And in the end the dealer's stamp made no difference to the resale value. It was part-ex'd for the A6 and I got about £500 less than I would in private sale, but I wanted it gone because there was interest in the A6.

Personally I would just tick the boxes in the service book for what has been done and sign it with your name. That way it has history, and you don't have a ridiculous bill.

Sorry I've gone on a bit, but if you can service it yourself I would definitely do it.