Thread: Dealer servicing plans worth it?

I would think do the service plan. It's another thing on your side when the warranty items come up. There is nothing to stop you adding in some extras. You'll have to sort out getting there anyway!

As to the price.. 5 services for 3500 doesn't sound expensive to me.

You've spent over 100k on a car. Think of it as insurance for your warranty!

In late 2023 it was $2500 - 3 services @ nominal 24months/32000km.
Defender services are not annual.
Essentially you lock in a price against inflation I suppose.

It also depends on how many kms you do.

In my case - my car is 4+ years old but the service plan expired last year due to the kms that I do.

As others have said - you are locking in against inflation?

Two services ago they replaced the brake lines according to the factory service requirements (136,000km service from memory).

My last service was $7k - that included the factory service (10 years or 170,000km) and new rear brakes (pads & rotors).

Does your local have access to what’s required in a service? (To stay within the factory warranty).

Does your local have the ability to upload the service data onto Land Rovers online service history? (Might be useful if you want to sell the car in the future)

Does your local have access to service bulletins?

I have serviced my new Defender at the dealer - but due to costs I will be swapping to a local indi once it is out of warranty at the end of this year.

I was quoted $1,300 for the next service which is considered a “small service”

Cheers,
GG

Thanks all. I'll double-check the details -- if it really is only three services at 24 months/32,000km then that seems like poor value.

That said, I'm more worried about quality than value, and I've seen a tonne of bad dealership work. Seen a bunch of bad independent work too, but that seems more avoidable as there are plenty of independents local to me. I've historically worked on my own stuff 90% of the time but obviously that's a terrible idea on a car under warranty.

I do less than 10,000km/year so I'd definitely be hitting the time-based intervals first. Fair questions about service bulletins etc, I'll have to ask.

Maybe my best bet is to go with the service plan but do additional oil changes locally.

I opted for the plan, as well as the extended 5year warranty on my P400SE. I have done 2 interim services myself (oil change only every ~10000km) at 10k km, 22,000km and have had 1 dealer service done at 31000km.

The 34000km service interval on these engines is just too long. I use genuine JLR filters and the correct Castrol Edge Professional 0W20 full synthetic oil.

First oil change the old oil was very dark, much better on the next one.

Now at 37000km, will do the next two oul changes myself at 42000 and 53000km respectively, dealer service due at 64000km.

Originally Posted by Eric SDV6SE

I opted for the plan, as well as the extended 5year warranty on my P400SE.

Thanks for sharing. Did you consider the plan good value? I'll have to ask about the extended warranty thing now that they're all five years as standard, the dealer didn't mention extending it when I ordered.

I opted for it based on past experience. The D4 came with balance of new car warranty when I bought it, plus I added the extended wty to it. Fast fwd 6 years, and 2days shy of the ext wty expiring, the secondary turbo decided it didn't want to be a part of the SDV6 family. 10k of parts and labour fully covered by the warranty, as well as numerous other things along the way, including front left wheel hub and stud parting ways, a primary turbo failure early on. So yeah, got my value out of the warranty for sure.

Wife's car also has it, her jeep has had the infotainment unit replaced under warranty,interior trims, water pump and idle control solenoid.


Would hate to think what the JLR price for a ceramic bearing turbo charger, or a replacement 48v supercharged is. The matrix headlights alone are a few grand each, so it gives me piece of mind to have an ext wty.

Originally Posted by Eric SDV6SE

I opted for the plan, as well as the extended 5year warranty on my P400SE. I have done 2 interim services myself (oil change only every ~10000km) at 10k km, 22,000km and have had 1 dealer service done at 31000km.

The 34000km service interval on these engines is just too long. I use genuine JLR filters and the correct Castrol Edge Professional 0W20 full synthetic oil.

First oil change the old oil was very dark, much better on the next one.

Now at 37000km, will do the next two oul changes myself at 42000 and 53000km respectively, dealer service due at 64000km.

Have you considered doing a used oil analysis? It's cheap. I've been doing it for a few oil changes now and have learnt a lot. I'm not saying I'll do it forever but while I'm tweaking oil and duration seems like a good idea.

On my aged td5 the factory intervals are 15k and one year. I did 5k in two months on a desert trip and found the much thicker oil had significant viscosity decline. One wonders how these super light oils survive in our climate. I suspect it's one of the reasons catastrophic engine failure is now relatively common.