Should I keep up the service history or not?

[Bailes1992]

My Mondeo is due a service. Up till now it has a full service history all done by the same Ford main dealer. I'm tempted to do it myself but I don't know how much I care about the service history.

Part of me says take it in for an oil and filter change, get the book stamped and do the rest myself.
Or should I just do it myself?

Bailes.

[gumby6371]

Depends how long you plan to keep the car mate.
A fully stamped book will add a bit to the resale price but after 3 or 4 years you'll have spent far more than you'll make.

If you'd had it from new I suppose warranties would be dealer service specific but on a second hand motor I can't really see the point.

[Bailes1992]

I plan to keep it for 3-4 years. At that time it will be around the 200,000mile mark. I also plan 6k/6month services.
I hope that when I do go to sell someone will be less worried with the mileage because of the service history.

[rwb]

I plan to keep it for 3-4 years. At that time it will be around the 200,000mile mark. I also plan 6k/6month services.
I hope that when I do go to sell someone will be less worried with the mileage because of the service history.

Therefore no -- just as long as you can stick to the plan.

At 200k it will be worthless, and anybody who is paranoid about service stamps will not even consider it.

However, check carefully whether any warranty you have requires you to have main dealer servicing.

[Welly]

It's a good point Bailes and one which I've been dragged into myself.

I bought the Volvo at 4 years old with 24K miles, same kinda thing - full dealer history blah...blah. I've kept it up with the nice stampy book etc and now just use them to do "essential services" (oil + filter and quick once-over) once a year for £150.00 (the oil costs £80.00 alone). Everything else I do myself (pollen and air filters) and I have the brakes and mechanical repairs done at my mates garage with receipts.

I'm now on 55K miles but the reason I kept up the history was two-fold; one for the re-sale or rather ease of re-sale and one as a warranty back up. There's a potential expensive failure (£800.00) on my car of the ABS unit and Volvo can be very generous towards the replacement as it's a known defect but having a full history goes a long long way on this issue.

I'd ask about basic servicing and the stamped book and then do your own intermediate oil change in between (like every 6K). Main dealers can be quite competitive with their pricing now and you can also benefit form any software updates