Thread: First service coming up - is it worth taking to dealership or local mechanic ok?

Originally Posted by defender_i_hardly_know_er

Or if a local mechanic would be just as good.

How long is a piece of string? It is a bit hard for us to judge the quality of your local mechanic over the internet!

regarding the warrenty, it may be easier in the long run to take it to the one dealer whilst still under it....then it atleast eliminates the old oh they did this its there fault, the other party then says no and you get punted back and forth over BS.....

If you have a warenty claim, its going to have to go to LR, so may as well get them doing the servicing from the outset. Its all on them then.

I chose to go to a local Land Rover mechanic rather than the dealer, he's done a great job of servicing the car at about 1/4 of the price that I was quoted from Land Rover. To be fair I did choose a mechanic that deals with Land Rovers.. not just Jo Blogs down the street (or my BIL who happens to be a mechanic)..

I've also never had a problem with Land Rover regarding any warranty work that has needed to be done, in fact the opposite is true as they have gone out of their way to make sure that I am happy.

Originally Posted by uninformed

regarding the warrenty, it may be easier in the long run to take it to the one dealer whilst still under it....then it atleast eliminates the old oh they did this its there fault, the other party then says no and you get punted back and forth over BS.....

If you have a warenty claim, its going to have to go to LR, so may as well get them doing the servicing from the outset. Its all on them then.

Agree that it may eliminate the he said/she said issues, but I'd only go to an independent LR specialist for servicing if I had my time again.

X2 in regard to Sue's comment. That said, a LR specialist will likely be just as far away as the dealer, but in my experience, the specialists are the places to use.

x 3

With my '85 110s and my '68 Corvette I had a strategy: go to a brake specialist for brakes, a suspension specialist for suspension etc. I was wrong. After consistent problems with the 110 I went to Graeme Coopers. They diagnosed and fixed issues that my other providers had charged me a couple of thousand dollars chasing down but hadn't resolved. Coopers charged me a few hundred dollars (not thousands). And they had the car back to me same day. Another example was when a well known suspension franchise replaced all of the bushes on my Corvette - only to have components literally fall off the next week while I was driving. Fixed by a Corvette specialist.

From then on I used a LR specialist (I include LR dealers in that term) for my LR and a Corvette specialist for the Corvette. It has made the world of difference.

Mines been dealer serviced from new,when the warranty runs out it'll be independant,I know a good bloke who's been looking after my LR's for years. Pat

Thanks for the replies guys, in the end I'm booked in with a local mechanic - apparently I'm the third land rover this month but normally pretty rare for them I think. In the end I decided I'd rather take a chance at potentially knowing a good mechanic near by.