Kwik-Fit:
Mineral £18.95
Semi-synth £27.95
Fully synth £39.95
All Mobil. All fixed price, regardless of quantity.
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I used Kwik Fit for my Fiesta Zetec last week. £29 for semi-synth 5w30 oil.
Ford Rapid Fit wanted £36 for the same job.
If you don't mind mineral oil and just want a cheap oil change, National do an oil and filter change with Duckhams QXR for £15.
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Yes but you can ask for semi-synth and it costs £20 @ National.
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Im not plain stupid, just a special kind of stoopid.
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Amazingly, called my local PUG garage out of curiosity and they're asking £25 for oil/filter change. I don't know why I didn't ask them before since I'd much rather pay PUG a little extra and get genuine filter etc. than going to one of these FastFit type of places...and in any event, they work out cheaper than KwikFit...
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Im not plain stupid, just a special kind of stoopid.
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forgive my ignorance here, but when my A3 Tdi is out of warranty will any independent (e.g. Kwik Fit) use the "proper" fully synthetic oil that my car uses?
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I doubt it mate - usually just have an industrial size container round the back that gets used in everything. Unless you specifically ask or even better provided them with it they'd usually just put their usual stuff in.
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KwikFit and National offer various grades, albeit almost certainly from a big tank out the back, rather than anything too exotic. So you can certainly get fully synthetic, rather than Tesco Value 20W50 (£1.97 for 5l or something) but it won't be the manufacturer's specified one except by pure chance.
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Had to wait a few days for Kwik Fit to get the "special" oil for Mrs Ss Focus Zetec...
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My local Kwik-Fit uses Mobil oils from large tubs on trolleys, all clearly supplied by Mobil, not from a tank of dubious stuff round the back. The fully synth is indeed Mobil 1, which costs £35 for 4 litres at Halfords, hence my satisfaction in getting 7 litres from Kwik-Fit for £39.95. I guess that all Kwik-Fit branches use Mobil. Any such outfit will tell you what brand they use.
Kwik-Fit can be sensitive about using a filter supplied by the customer, understandably in view of their corporate liability. My local guys are now happy to use filters that I supply, as they usually don't stock them and they get comfort from adding "customer's own filter" to the invoice, but initially they took some persuading, because they are trained to say no.
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On the two occasions I visited these palces, they had three different contaners. Each clearly marked with the grade of oil and I watched them as they wheeled out the right contianer. Now I cannot guaruntee that they used the right oil (IE: I paid for semi-synth and they filld it with mineral) but the point is why on earth would they want to screw you over < 5L of oil? It simply isn't worth it.
I'm now going to go back to PUG in my case since they're doing oil/filter changes for only £25 - it's a very good price IMHO for OE stuff.
For your Audi, I doubt it'd need more frequet changes since if it's had 100% Audi servicing, it should alst quite happily to the enxt service? But if you wanted to, I'd DIY to eb sure you're puting in the right stuff with an OE filter.
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Im not plain stupid, just a special kind of stoopid.
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so, is the only way to get VAG pukkah stuff to pay Audi service charges?
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There's always two schools of thought on that. If you keep your car serviced regularly by your Audi main dealer, then you will have to pay a premium - but be safe in the knowledge that should a part fail at some time in the future, you might get help with the cost of the said failure because your car has been serviced according to specs. and Audi cannot argue that it hasn't.
But then you wiegh up the cost at a very good Audi Independant garage. But since none of these palces are 'Audi Approved' - and soemthing were then to fil, you might turn to the Garage for help with costs (yeah right!) or pay out for the work.
You'd have to wiegh up whats what and it's down to personal preference. Is it worth paying extra for Audi servicing or go to an Indy? What are you msot comfortable with.
But I see that atleast Audi in MK seem to offer a FULL service for only £125 (all in) for cars 4 cylinders and over 4 years old...which to me is CHEAP.
What I tend to do is get a quote from an Indy Garage and then call round the delaers to see who is offering the best price for service - prices do fluctuate to an Inspection II @ Victoria in MK might cost £350 while the same service in Essex might cost £300 - while an Indy might charge £280. Is a few quid worth the extra piece of mind? I'd rather pay BMW and know that if I have ANY cause for complaint it will eb followed up and actioned - plus the work carries a two year unlimtied mileage warranty - can an Indy give you that?
It's all swings and roundabouts but I fear I digress. So apologies for rambling.
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Im not plain stupid, just a special kind of stoopid.
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So if, as I do, have a BMW 320 d that the service interval indicator comes up at over 18K miles, and I decide to do an interim 9000 mile oil and filter change, I am more or less stuck with going to BMW (over £100) or a specialist (best I've found is still over £50 and claims won't invalidate warranty).
Kwik Fit, Mobil 1, is the right oil for it so I could do that but it would have the "wrong" filter.
Guess I could buy the filter and oil at the BM garage and get Kwik Fit to do the work.
Mind you, one specialist said to stick with the service indicator and save money, saying the oil MBW use is good enough these days.
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Sparrow - Buddy I'm not preaching here. I'm just giving my own POV is all :(
If I can negotiate BMW down to is very close to what an Indy Garage would charge then I will always go with BMW because to me the peace of mind has a value.
As for KwikFit, I don't think they will usually do the work on a labour only basis if you provide them with oil and filter - since they only fit their own products - but if you get to know them then they might. But as for the oil, if it is gneuine OE quality then it should happily last till the enxt service - else the service indicator would pop up since, and I beleive, one of the things it monitors is the quality of the oil.
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Im not plain stupid, just a special kind of stoopid.
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re - audi oil changes.
full story is at
www.audi.co.uk/acs/ownershipbenefits/details.jsp?i...6
"Now with AVS there is no fixed schedule. In fact the interval can range from 9,000 miles to 30,000,
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With AVS, on-board sensors continuously monitor the condition of the engine oil in terms of temperature, level & oil degradation.
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Audi owners don?t have to fit their working lives around traditional fixed service intervals, because there is no predetermined mileage for a service. Depending on how ? and where - the individual drives, the interval can be up to 19,000 miles/24 months for petrol engines, up to 22,000 miles/24 months for the V6 TDI diesel and up to 30,000 miles/24 months for 3 and 4 cylinder TDI diesel engines
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the use of advanced formulation Long Life oils such as Castrol SLX OW30 Long Life 2., which have been specially formulated for Audi.
This new generation of ultra high-grade synthetic oils is designed to withstand ageing and high loads without deterioration. Using ordinary high quality multigrade oil will not cause any engine damage but it will defeat the object of the new AVS technology and will mean that a service will be needed at fixed 10,000 mile intervals. In addition, compared with conventional oils, Long Life oils give exceptional levels of engine protection, are kinder to the environment and deliver fuel savings.
AVS is able to offer a reduced impact on the environment thanks to the reduction in the amount of filters and waste oil that have to be disposed of. The specially developed AVS Long Life oil helps the environment in another way too, by reducing fuel consumption. Tests confirm that running an Audi on AVS reduces fuel consumption by an average of 2.7%, a worthwhile saving,
..."
you need to check whether the mobil-1 used by kwik-fit is equivalent to castrol slx ow30 longlife2. (there used to be different grades of mobil-1 apparently).
by the way, some kwik-fit outlets will allow you to provide your own oem bmw/audi filter if you tell them to write "oem filter suplied by customer fitted at customer's insistence, kwikfit accept no liability, etc. or words to that effect". (this may not have any effect in law but the fitters seem quite happy to so.)
as for warranty issues, eu directive means audi/bmw/etc. cannot stop you having work done by good reputable outfits.
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by the way, some kwik-fit outlets will allow you to provide your own oem bmw/audi filter if you tell them to write "oem filter suplied by customer fitted at customer's insistence, kwikfit accept no liability, etc. or words to that effect". (this may not have any effect in law but the fitters seem quite happy to so.)
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Tried that with my local KwikFit (2 x branches) they wont have it :( But then again it is my PUG :)
as for warranty issues, eu directive means audi/bmw/etc. cannot stop you having work done by good reputable outfits.
Yes, but who defines reputable? I don't think the standards for determining reputable are in are they? I know the directive might be in force but the certification of such garageshasn't been done?
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Im not plain stupid, just a special kind of stoopid.
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Yes, but who defines reputable?
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the garage that wants your business, if they are willing to claim/certify that your warranty won't be affected. they have to be big or strong enough to take on the manufacturers.
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:: edit ::
i should have emphasised, in bold, part of audi's sentence that
using ordinary high quality multigrade oil will not cause any engine damage but it will defeat the
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So if you have an early oil change, do the sensors suss this out and simply extend the service interval beyond what it would have been if the oil hadn't been changed.
I am more interested in BMW than Audi though probably similar technology in both.
My BMW accepts as OK either Castrol longlife or Mobil 1. (both say on the pack that they meet BMW longlife spec which is what the car calls up).
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"....advanced formulation Long Life oils such as Castrol SLX OW30 Long Life 2., which have been specially formulated for Audi."
Can this be purchased outside VAG?
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Yeah, Halfords sell it, Grey bottle that actually says 'specially formulated for VW group cars' (or something like that)
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sorry, omitted to say Thanks for the reply
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"..they had three different contaners"
Glad to hear that it wasn't two - one mineral, one synthetic, with a mixing valve for semi-synth... :-)
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