We answer why it’s so important to get your car serviced and other FAQ’s

Introduction

Whether we are using our cars to just to pop-down to the local supermarket, that’s to grab a loaf of bread or you regularly commute long distances-what’s for sure is the components underneath the bonnet of our cars will be working tremendously hard on every trip.

This is why it’s crucial that as a car owner, you keep on top of the maintenance of your car as per the manufacturer’s specification.

Regardless of brand or the model of car, whether it’s a large diesel engine, petrol or a hybrid cars will need servicing. If these service intervals are ignored, then sometimes this can cause an increase in mechanical wear, or even something much worse, such as an engine seizing due to lack of oil!

So, whether you drive a small one litre petrol car, or you drive a whopping W12 petrol sports-car capable of a 0-60 time in the blink of an eye, what’s for sure is this, our cars need to be serviced by a respected garage, and that’s where we come in.

 

Now, you may think well why is this so important? Why should I have my car serviced?

Well, let’s set the scene, that is you are driving down the road, so let’s just think quickly about all those moving components that are working hard under the bonnet to help propel the car along.

There’s the engine’s numerous pistons working hard to ignite and capture the energy from burning those fossil fuels, the air filter that is also working to filter the vast quantities of air as it gets sucked through to keep the engine’s air and fuel mixture just right for combustion.

Then there’s the oil filter that has to filter all of that engine oil whether it be synthetic or mineral oil in order to keep the engine lubricated, these are just some of the car parts working to help keep us moving along the road! There are often so many more, such as timing belts that take a great strain, our coolant, which needs to be the right mixture for winter or summer conditions.

Our engines therefore have to work very-hard, this is why it’s important we take the time to get our car serviced by trusted and qualified mechanics, at our garage you can rely upon us that’s in order to get their city car, classic car, everyday saloon, 4×4, sports car, in fact any type of car serviced.

 

What are the different types of car servicing options that a lot of garages offer?

It’s understandable that a lot of car owners simply will not know all of the various servicing options that their local garage will offer.

As its not like going shopping at the supermarket! We all know whether we need eggs, bread and milk or not, but not all of us will know that most garages offer “full servicing”, “interim servicing” and also just to drain the engine oil and replace the engines oil filter- so which one do you need?

Well, when you talk to our team, we will be able to figure out which service option your car needs. Plus, if you do have an area of the car that you would like checked as well, such as whether car’s clutch, DPF, air conditioning system, brakes, tyres, battery or any other part needs checking over, then our mechanics in Cardiff, South Wales will be able to check over your car, and be able to advise you.

 

Well, let us explain the different car service options that we offer:

Different garages offer various different car servicing options, for example with some businesses they offer set prices for servicing of a vehicle based on whether it is diesel or petrol and then the size of the engine.

So, let’s give you a brief example, let’s say that you own a small car, it has lets say a 1.3 litre petrol engine, this means that the garage may offer a quote for servicing petrol engines between say 1 L and 1.6 L at a set price, not all offer car servicing this way, but some do. Some ask you to enter your car registration number into a website, then it will offer you a quote.

This means car service costs do vary massively, and in a large capital city like Cardiff, with hundreds of independent garages, what you will find is prices can vary quite a bit.

Therefore different garages offer different prices, however what you have to make sure is that when comparing quotes, that they are compared on the basis of what is being serviced. Plus, also are quality replacement servicing parts being offered?

For example:

-Will the replacement air filter be high-quality? Will it be a manufacturers part or another brand?

-Which brand engine oil is being used? Is this a quality product?

-Which brand filters are being used, will quality oil filters,  and fuel filters for either diesel or petrol cars be used?

-What engine parts are checked by the mechanic? For example will they check the condition of the timing belt?

-Do your engine’s spart plugs, or heater plugs need replacing? If so with which brand?

For example some garages may offer more checks than others say a 80 point check, others may only check say 60 areas that they check in the quote.  

If you do not know much about the more common types of car servicing options, then why not have a quick read below?

Often car servicing will fall into three types of car servicing, which include carrying out a “full service”, “interim servicing” or just an oil change and a oil filter change. You may also see some garages carrying out “winter servicing”  or “summer servicing”- as cars should also be made ready for the different seasons we have here in the U.K, for example, carrying out if there’s sufficient coolant, and also you may have a weak battery, so some garages, will include for example, as part of the winter check, to see if the battery can be recharged, or may need replacing.

As nobody wants to walk out on a rather frosty Welsh morning, in a hurry to get to work, scrape the windscreen, then only to find the engine will not turnover, due to a weak car battery!

Below we have mentioned some more information regarding these different types of car service options.

 

Full service

A lot of customers frequently opt for the full service option with our garage, often they will come to us to have their car prepared for an MOT inspection. This means, when they are booked in to get their car checked over, before the MOT, at the same time the car owner will often say once the car is prepared for its MOT, can you please carry out a full service as well. As often the car owner will not want to go to a local garage, get their car ready for an MOT then have to book more time off work, to bring the car back for a full service, so often the car owner in Cardiff, will say to our mechanics once the car has been checked over before its MOT, can you carry out a full service? And we can, we offer very competitive prices, we also work on a wide range of cars, for example we can service VW’s that’s Volkswagen cars, Seat cars and Skoda cars, you may own a Japanese brand car, and we can service these too, such as Toyota’s or lets say a Mazda car?

 

We therefore offer full car servicing, so for a quote, why not call our independent garage?

 

Does your cars oil filter and engine oil need changing? (Fully synthetic oil, mineral oil, whichever engine oil your car’s engine requires, we can offer it).

Perhaps you do not want a full car service, perhaps you just like our mechanics to change the engine oil and oil filter?

And it doesn’t matter if you drive a car with a 5.0 twin turbo muscle car, or you drive a 1.0 petrol non turbo car, we can change the oil, we can also change the oil filter, we offer very competitive prices on oil changes, regardless of which brand car you drive.

 

Interim servicing

We can also offer interim servicing, this is perfect for car owners who may carry out a lot of mileage during the year. For example, are you a sales rep? If so you may carryout in excess of 20,000 miles a year for example, so car owners, or company car owners that carryout a lot of mileage, they will often need to get the engine oil, and engine oil filter replaced more often.

Therefore, as you can see our garage offers “interim servicing”, “full servicing” and also just to change the engine oil and also the oil filter.

 

Which engine oils can your garage supply?

Now this is important to remember, some garages offer special car servicing deals, that is offers that may seem very appealing to a car owner.

For example, for a fixed cost they may change the engine oil and the engine oil filter, or they may carry out a full service, yet what you have to be aware of is, are they using quality product, that’s to say are they using quality engine oils?

At our garage we most definitely use high-quality engine oils, our mechanics and our garage will never compromise on the quality of the oils that we use, for example in the vast majority of cars that we service at our garage here in Cardiff, we would use high-quality Castrol engine oil.

 

Why is it important to have a car service carried out as per the manufacturer’s specification?

There are many reasons why you should get your car serviced as per the manufacturer’s specification, As earlier mentioned, your car works extremely hard, that’s to say the components work very hard every time you use turnkey.

The car’s engine is therefore working very hard, that’s whether you have a hybrid electric, diesel engine or you are driving a petrol vehicle, all of the engine parts will work hard and this is why you should have your car serviced.

For example, it’s not abnormal for a car to come to us for a service, and we inform the car owner that the engine oil is running extremely low, now if that engine did not get serviced and seen by our trusted mechanics, it’s entirely possible that this might have caused catastrophic engine failure!

This is just one reason why should get your car serviced, there are many others, such as for example when you sell your vehicle a lot of car owners want to see a service logbook, that’s to see how well-maintained the car is.

That’s because a lot of people who are purchasing a used car, with no service history may think that the vehicle has not been sufficiently maintained, and this may have led to excessive engine wear, therefore this might put off some buyers of such vehicles for example.

Alternatively, if they were to look through a service log book, that has regular service stamps from a garage that they recognise as being respected, and that the car servicing has been carried out to the manufacturers specification, then they may believe that the car has been better maintained.

 

How much will it cost to get my car serviced?

This does depend on the vehicle that you drive, for example which make vehicle you drive, will depend on how much the various components for car servicing cost, for example even the price of an air filter can vary quite dramatically, that’s depending on if it’s a 1 L petrol car, or whether you are driving a hybrid, or a 6 L petrol V6 for example.

Also, different engine oils, as well as different oil filters need to be purchased, therefore because there are different costs, we will need to understand which company manufacturers your car and then we can offer you a quote.

Now, some garages do stick to servicing one type of car, made by one manufacturer, however our family run garage is quite different, we service a wide range of different cars.

For example, each week at our independent family run garage in Cardiff, our mechanics will service many different make vehicles, for example we frequently service Vauxhall cars, Audis, Porsche’s, Skoda, Seat’s, Toyota’s and also other well-known brands such as Renault and Peugeot cars, therefore many different used cars are brought to our independent garage for servcing.

So, as you can see our garage is a family run garage, we have highly experienced mechanics that work for Automotive Cardiff Ltd, yet we don’t just service one type of car, we service many, as you can see from above we service many different manufacturers, and quote depending on what work needs to be carried out, so regardless as of if you drive a petrol engine city car, or you have a high-performance V12 engine fitted within a sports car, we can service your vehicle for you.

We are planning a very long drive in our vehicle, we would like it serviced prior to this, are you able to service our car at short notice?

This will depend on our availability for that week, therefore we encourage all car owners to contact us, that’s to see when we can book you in at the earliest possible date. We will try our best to book you in as early as possible, however, if you are planning a long road trip for example you might be driving your car abroad, then we would encourage you to contact us at the earliest possible date you can, to book your car in for a service.

We have concerns over whether our car’s brakes need to be repaired or replaced also can you please advise?

A lot of car owners when they are having their car serviced, will speak to our mechanics, and say to them can you please carry out a “brake check” as well, our mechanics will then carry out a brake check for you once requested by the customer.

I’m noticing some “clutch judder”, are you able to advise whether the cars clutch needs to be replaced?

You may have been noticing a few car parts on your car which are starting to show signs of needing replacement, this could be something as simple as squeaky window blades, or it could be something more significant as your car’s clutch, which is vibrating when you are engaging it into gear?

If there are any mechanical problems with your car, we would never advise delaying getting it seen to by a qualified mechanic, as if not attended to, this could lead to much greater mechanical problems sometimes.

However, with that said, when you are having your car serviced by us, you might want to say to our mechanics, that you have noticed that your car’s clutch is juddering, and they will then be able to advise whether the clutch needs to be replaced or not.

 

How can I book a car service with your garage?

You can simply call us to book your car in for a full service.

Are your mechanics well-versed on working on a wide range of cars?

Yes, we have highly experienced mechanics which work for us, they have vast experience of servicing a wide range of different cars. For example, if you are looking for a company that can offer a car service on your car regardless of its make all the year of manufacture, we will be able to offer you a competitive and no obligation quote.

 

How our garage can assist

Our friendly team are located here in Cardiff, therefore if you would like to bring your car to our garage, we are based off the busy Newport Road, and are easily located.

Therefore, if you are looking for a company that can offer you a vast range of different servicing options, including car repairs, and also repairing air conditioning systems, then we are garage to contact.