Service plan - Yes or No?

[KeithWalter]

Hi

We're about to pick up a new Q3 45 TFSI Vorsprung edition this week

Is it worth taking out a service plan with Audi, or just paying for the service at the specified intervals?

Also, does anyone know what the service intervals are for a new Q3 in the UK? I can't find details anywhere, which makes it difficult to work out if we're actually saving anything

Many thanks

[Magnet]

Hello Keith, 

The new Q3 sounds great. Enjoy. 

Re. the service plan:- As I understood it, servicing was carried out on either a Longlife schedule which is ’type of usage’ based, if the car is used frequently and covers average mileages of say c12K + per annum, or on a timed basis ( say annually) if the mileage is rather lower than that. 

With the Longlife schedule, the car’s usage is continuously monitored and services generally come around at about 18K miles or 18 months - and you will be alerted of this on the display - with some notice. The timed schedule intervals is just that. 

You should be able to gauge which one of these best fits your usage. 

Whether to pay for a service plan or not? This could be influenced by whether you are buying on PCP etc. and how long you intend keeping the car. With PCPs they usually want to sell you all sorts of add-ons from polishes to wheel insurance! 

If I was going to consider entering into a service plan, I would want to know what is not (in caps) included - this is much more important that what is. It’s likely that brake components won’t be for example. 

Apologies if this is a long winded reply which doesn’t answer the question, but you will need to work out how much you will be paying Audi over say 18 months, and compare with the cost of say the Longlife service -  which you should be able to find out. 

If it were mine, I would do my homework and perhaps consider putting their costs one side, and saving that against your servicing costs when due. 

One other point:- If the Longlife service plan is still in operation, you will need to let them know what your anticipated annual mileage is, since they might have been pretty good in the past at setting the the car’s servicing monitoring to short service intervals - whichnof course means more services ! 

Perhaps some points to investigate and bring up to date if necessary. 

Good luck with the new car.

Kind regards,

Gareth. 

[KeithWalter]

Thanks Gareth

We're almost certainly looking at time based / annual scheme as I'm now retired and only travel around 6,000 miles a year and it's a straight cash sale - no PCP

I keep seeing reference to 9000 miles or one year for the Audi plan, which seems to make sense. The last few cars I've driven have been two year intervals, which I've thought were too long

Just a case of working out if the three annual services would cost more than a three year service plan, which isn't easy to do

Keith

 

[Magnet]

Hello Keith,

Personally, I wouldn’t get too concerned about it, or really trying to working it out.

Not opting for their service plan will give you a greater flexibility to negotiate prices for not-covered wearing parts when they are required, and of course, allows you to use another Audi dealer to do your servicing, should you have any dissatisfaction with the supplying dealer, or the alternative Audi dealer offers you a more competitive service price at the time. 

Any potential savings will be very, very minor in comparison with the outlay to purchase, and as I said, probably just not worth troubling the mind with one way or the other. 

Kind regards,

Gareth.