Leaping straight to the conclusion, the answer is yes – servicing your car yourself is perfectly possible. If you have the knowledge, skills and specialist equipment needed to get the job done at home, go right ahead.
Unfortunately, this simply does not apply to around 99.9% of motorists.
Truth is, the DIY approach to servicing is not recommended in the vast majority of instances. Irrespective of how pricey a full annual service may be, there are good reasons to shy away from the manual option.
For one thing, the kind of equipment needed to go about a full service at home would cost you more than professional servicing. A comprehensive annual service will typically involve the inspection, adjustment and/or replacement of more than 50 essential components. Coupled with the costs of the tools and accessories needed to make these adjustments/replacements happen, you could end up spending a fortune.
Guarantees and Assurances
Secondly, servicing a car manually means denying yourself any kind of warranty. One of the benefits of handing your car over to a garage for any work is the guarantee that accompanies the job. Not only do you know that everything has been done properly, but you also have some kind of fallback if anything goes wrong. Service your car yourself and it’s all on you, if and when things take a turn for the worse.
It’s also worth remembering how established service centres gain access to the kinds of trade discounts and wholesale prices you yourself would be excluded from. This means that each and every tool and component needed to service your car will be significantly cheaper for them to pick up. Again, adding up to a job can actually be cheaper to have done professionally.
Lastly, there’s the way in which a full (or at least partial) service history can have a major impact on a vehicle’s resale value. Each time you have your car serviced professionally, you receive a full receipt, complete with an overview of the work performed. This adds to the service history of the car, and naturally makes it more appealing (i.e. valuable) in the eyes of prospective buyers.
By contrast, service your car yourself and you have absolutely no evidence of any such work. You can assure them you’ve kept it in great condition till the proverbial cows come home, but it will fall on deaf ears. Even if you service your car fully and to a professional standard several times a year, you’ll benefit from no formal service history whatsoever.
The Safe and Sensible Option
Given the above, common sense dictates that professional servicing is almost always the way to go. When you think about it, those who spend their entire working lives servicing vehicles are in a much better position to get the job done properly than you yourself.
Plus, given the fact that you could technically save money long-term with professional servicing, the whole thing really is a no-brainer.
For more information on the services we provide or to discuss collection of a scrap car in your area, contact a member of the team at Take My Scrap Car today for a chat.
