Getting 480 Serviced at Volvo dealer, good idea or not??

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phil480
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Getting 480 Serviced at Volvo dealer, good idea or not??

Post by phil480 » Mon Sep 24, 2007 12:14 pm

Hello all.

My 480 is soon due for a sevice and I was wondering if it would be worth having it serviced at my local Volvo garage. I hear it's expensive, don't know how much. I wondered if the quality of service would be any better than what I would get from my usual garage (and he's good).

One thing that does need looking at is the airbag, the SRS light on the dash is on.
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Post by coyote1980 » Mon Sep 24, 2007 6:25 pm

Well, tough call.

It really depends on the dealer. Some dealer will raise their eyebrows and ask WTF is that Honda doing here. If you read that kind of approach between the lines then you'd better leave, since their standard reply (even to worn wiper-blades) would be: you need a new CEM, ABS computer and wiring loom...

I do visit a genuine Volvo dealer with my 480. They're very friendly, give me a call when something unexpected comes along to discuss wether they should replace it or not, and they offer me advise on things to keep an eye on until next years service interval.

Just pay them a visit, tell them you're considering putting your baby in their hands for service and see if you get a nice conversation. Better not do this late in the evening when everybody's in a rush to go home :lol:
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Post by phil480 » Mon Sep 24, 2007 6:37 pm

Haha, thanks for the advice.

They would appear to be a good dealer, they have been there many years. I know someone who gets his S40 done there and he says the same about them calling him up making sure everythings good. I didn't know if it would be any different as it's an older car.

I'll pop in and see what they say, and how much.

Thanks again.
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Post by coyote1980 » Mon Sep 24, 2007 6:41 pm

It's always good to ask if they have more 480 in service. The more, the better since then they should have some basic understanding of this weird Dutch Volvo 8)
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Post by Ral » Tue Sep 25, 2007 8:42 am

I went in to a Volvo dealer to ask them about servicing when I got my 480 and they sorta said "yeah, we'll do it, but we do, we'll need to make sure your car is up to our standards and to look will be £750 plus whatever costs for labour on top of that to get it up to scratch. So no, I didn't go for that myself.

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Post by kev » Tue Sep 25, 2007 11:54 am

Just do it yourself.Go to Volvo and get the oil and air filters ,
plus a sump washer.

Get some oil do the oil change .Check your plugs dizzy etc and
you will save yourself a fortune.

The SRS light is easy ,ignore it or remove it from your dash.
The cost to service the system by Volvo would be horrendous.

You could get it done by an independant garage for around £150
which will still be cheaper than Volvo.

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Re: service

Post by coyote1980 » Tue Sep 25, 2007 1:54 pm

kev wrote:The SRS light is easy ,ignore it or remove it from your dash.
The cost to service the system by Volvo would be horrendous.
Ignoring something like the SRS light is something I wouldn't prefer. If you slam into something and end up hitting the steering wheel with your head you will wish you'd spent that money on research when you had the chance.

The solution may be costly, but getting a diagnose about what is wrong shouldn't be so expensive. I would like to know WHY the light is on...
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Post by robkendall » Tue Sep 25, 2007 7:29 pm

thing with a lot of 480s is they are past the age when the whole airbag system needs to be changed....isnt it recommended every ten years?....so really its something i would want doing tbh regardless of cost....at least then youve another 10yrs without having to (theoretically at least)
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Post by owen080808 » Tue Sep 25, 2007 7:43 pm

who needs airbags when you can have a momo wheel? 8)

+1 on servicing yourself tho, gets my vote every time.
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Re: service

Post by esta » Tue Sep 25, 2007 10:03 pm

kev wrote:Just do it yourself.Go to Volvo and get the oil and air filters ,
plus a sump washer.

Get some oil do the oil change .Check your plugs dizzy etc and
you will save yourself a fortune.

The SRS light is easy ,ignore it or remove it from your dash.
The cost to service the system by Volvo would be horrendous.

You could get it done by an independant garage for around £150
which will still be cheaper than Volvo.
I was gonna do all my servicing myself, but the trouble comes down to the old history file, i think the stamps are important if your going to the bother of asking where the best place for servicing is.

I was quoted £150 from my local volvo dealer, guess it depends where your located, but the advice on asking if the place has other 480's in is VERY good advice, i have been to a Volvo dealership where the parts guy hadn't even heard of a 480, and asked whether i meant the 440... :angry:
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Post by kev » Wed Sep 26, 2007 5:39 am

I may have been a little rash in my suggestion of ignoring the SRS
light.
If the fault can be diagnosed and fixed thats great but at what cost.....
Do we have any ideas of this?

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Post by Dan the 480 Man » Wed Sep 26, 2007 6:52 am

The SRS light i would get looked at, but servicing by a main dealer is a definate no-go, unless you're loaded.

As per Kev's post, get the parts yourself (oil filter, air filter, plugs, oil, dizzy cap & rotor arm) and do it. You can have the whole thing done in an hour if you pace yourself, piece of cake.

With regards to a stamp, that doesn't bother me that much-It would be nice to see another stamp mind as it's got a FSH, but it's a 14 year old car and i've serviced loads of others before. All i do is fill in the service book myself listing what has been done and keep the receipts to back it up (got about 2 wallets full now :lol:)-so if anybody asks then i can say 'here's the proof'.

You get to learn about the car too-you can see where things go, whats connected to this that and the other etc.
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Post by donpaulo » Wed Sep 26, 2007 7:23 am

I like the reassurance of a service history myself. But mostly like being able to blame someone else when things go wrong. I used to go to the main dealer (they were VERY friendly) but the costs were getting silly. I realised i didn't need to pay the extra 150 quid to be told "my nosecone had stone chips" or have my screen wash filled up. Now i go to an independant specialist. They're 40 miles away but i still save loads of money. They are much more used to older cars too right enough.

BTW...my SRS light was showing recently and it was just a wee earth fault on the bulb.

And for the record.......Its 15 years between SRS services now they changed their mind at volvo HQ
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Post by coyote1980 » Wed Sep 26, 2007 8:26 am

It used to be 10 years for the airbag interval. But it could well be that it has been decreased to 15 years.

And it's an inspection of the SRS system, not automatically a replacement.
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Post by MGB_GT » Wed Sep 26, 2007 7:01 pm

Go to Volvo with a 10 year old + car hmm.......Not a chance!!!

I've paid for Volvo servicing @ £90 per hour +Vat on my S40 to keep the full dealer history in tact, frankly my experience of every dealer I've visited is generally friendly but useless.

It extremely unlikely they will know any more about the car than a regular garage, and everything costs a fortune. In fact they knew bugger all about my 3 year old S40, frankly they are not mechanics just part fitters who rely on computers to tell them what to do. Eventually, after a £1,000+ repair bill for the Climate Control system which was botched and never put right, I stopped and went back to my old trusty garage.

My own mechanic could not work out the 480 either as it's an odd car to work on, but he would take advisement from me to resolve problems, an arrangement which worked out fine and for only £35 ph labour.

As for SRS lights, having just walked away from a horrific pile up on the M25 I recommended having one, but that said would you pay £1,000 to fix it or buy a new car? It's a personal choice as to getting it repaired but it WILL be expensive as Volvo charge at least £150 just to diagnose the fault. Of course, like all dealers you have to wonder what this truly means as they still just replace things until it works again, and bill you for all the non-faulty stuff they replaced to find the problem. If you know it's not likely to work, you have to decide if you want to risk it or not. That said, how many people drive cars without airbags in the first place, and not everyone can afford the luxury. At least the 480 is 20 years ahead of some of the competition in general safety terms to begin with.

Point of note, my Rover 618 had the SRS bulb removed and it was noted as faulty in the service manual. A 70mph shunt into a Signum with no lights left in the middle carriageway of an unlit motorway soon proved this to be wrong, it went off but I never hit the thing anyway so it hardly mattered.
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Post by chris1roll » Wed Sep 26, 2007 9:36 pm

Yeah, do it yourself! Its the only way to run an old car without pouring money _straight_ down the drain.

The cars far too old to worry about a FSH, how much value do you really think its going to add to a car worth £400?
E.g even looking at a very generous 10% on an extremely generous £1000 car, you'll save that on the cost of one dealer service!
Kepp the all the parts reciepts in a file like I do, then you can see whats been done.

As for the SRS light, again, whats the car worth?? just pull it out, get an earlier column and wheel and just pretend your car is a year or two older.
ETA: airbag on a K plate, well, pretend its six months older.
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Post by stu chacks » Thu Sep 27, 2007 7:26 am


Unless you've got an ultra rare, super low mileage car with FVSH that your planning to keep as an investment or show car I wouldn't bother. Most Volvo dealers don't even know 480's particularly well as the car's are so old, and most of their mechanics are so young so have never even seen one.

As Kev said, just buy the filters/sparks etc from Volvo, put the mileage at service on the reciept and staple that into your service folder.
And if your thinking you can trust your local authorised Volvo main dealer more than a local independant, see below bill for simply swapping a fuel pump. The £50 battery replacement was because some scroat in the dealership stole my mums Bosch Silver battery while it was in there!....... say no more. :kill:

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Post by VanDerGraaf » Fri Sep 28, 2007 10:29 am

No.

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Post by gltease » Fri Sep 28, 2007 11:38 am

stu chacks wrote:
Unless you've got an ultra rare, super low mileage car with FVSH that your planning to keep as an investment or show car I wouldn't bother. Most Volvo dealers don't even know 480's particularly well as the car's are so old, and most of their mechanics are so young so have never even seen one.

As Kev said, just buy the filters/sparks etc from Volvo, put the mileage at service on the reciept and staple that into your service folder.
And if your thinking you can trust your local authorised Volvo main dealer more than a local independant, see below bill for simply swapping a fuel pump. The £50 battery replacement was because some scroat in the dealership stole my mums Bosch Silver battery while it was in there!....... say no more. :kill:


Stu.
Hey thats in Galway, they are a 5 min walk from my desk !! But do bear in mind that its a Euro quote not that it makes the pain of that bill any better.
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Post by glasgowjim » Sat Sep 29, 2007 1:23 pm

definately service yourself its so easy to do and will save a fortune. Also as said earlier you get to know your car so much better its well worth the effort.

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