60,000 mile service Arnage

[Paul_Bridgestock]

Looking at prices for carrying out the 60k service in the UK the price is quite high for what appears to be reasonably simple stuff.

One obviously very good specialist is charging 2,300 Pounds plus VAT.

As my car arrived initially lacking the service history we carried out a full inspection (it is a 2000 6.75 Red Label with 105,000 miles). It only needed a few bits and pieces and for various reasons, not least the wait for parts, the work is being carried out in somewhat piecemeal fashion.

I can report on three parts of the 60k service carried out yesterday. I should stress that my local garage is of the one man band coupled with a certain tattiness type.

I have used Monsieur Ruffie for all our various cars since coming over to France and he has always been excellent and he is totally trust worthy and honest. The only exception to his usage was with a recently sold BMW 335D over several years with the main BMW garages. The service and quality of work from them was totally appalling. Monsieur Ruffie does not supply free coffee but his work is superb.

He has never worked on a Bentley before despite having a very wide experience.

Yesterday we carried out an oil and filter change, a change of spark plugs and rear brake pads.

The only slight problem was getting the oil filter out. After about ten minutes he loosened the oil cooler and moved it forward to give space to take out the filter.

The rear brake pads were replaced in about 30 minutes including demounting the callipers etc and cleaning everything before remounting.

I had been told that the spark plugs were difficult to change and warned him of such. He did not appear to be concerned and had the right side of the engine (from in the car) changed in 15 minutes. The front of the left side was very quick. The centre two plugs on that side were a little more difficult but were out in a short time. The last plug was difficult but with a curved extension bar it was out in less than ten minutes.

The total time for changing all 8 spark plugs was 41 minutes and that included answering the phone twice and handing a client some keys.

I just found it interesting and wonder if anybody else is surprised at the time take as I had assumed that it would be far longer. By the way, his labour rate is 53 € per hour including French VAT.

I am very pleased at the quality of his work.

[Paul_Bridgestock]

Just as an addition to the above post. I had a message this morning slightly critical of me for in the words of the email, "trying to run a Bentley on a shoestring".

Nothing could be further from the truth. The problem that I have is that the nearest Bentley garage here in France is a minimum of five hours away.

Obviously there will be jobs that my local garage cannot do and that is always a worry as transporting a broken car five hours to have a fault fixed but such is the price for living in semi-rural France.

I am happy to pay a specialist and will be returning the car the thousand miles to England in October especially to have a few niggles rectified including non working clock, sticking door lock etc.

I merely made the post as a discussion point/point of interest as I was surprised how little time the work took. I was not bragging about doing it 'on the cheap'.

Just to cheer you all up back in Blighty, here in the south of France it is raining and miserable.

I hope the sun is shining wherever you are.

Kind regards
Paul

[Nicholas Simons]

One man's shoestring is another man's string of pearls. No member of this club should be criticising another for trying to make running his Bentley as cheap as possible. There are many competent independent mechanics out there just as capable of maintaining a Bentley as a main dealer or high-end specialist. My back-street mechanic does a good job, and if he needs help I give him the relevant pages from the TSD. He charges half what a main dealer charges, and charges the hours taken not the book hours, which may be more.
We all have a responsibility to keep our cars in good and safe order, but that doesn't always mean going to the most expensive main dealer or high-end specialist, unless you want bragging rights.

[John Murch]

It is the skill of the engineer/mechanic that is important, not how flashy his show room is that is important. Anything that I can do on my car I do myself, anything else gets done by the person in whom I have the greatest confidence.

[Philip Edginton]

Oh dear, did not know we still had those types in the club.
He must be cutting corners if he can only afford shoe string rather than laces.
Are they sure that tradesmen should own this quality of vehicle, or slink back to our Austin and Morris cars where we belong eh.
Myself, well 3rd generation, purveyors of motor vehicles of distinction.