Servicing Stop.co.uk on Dragons Den

by Patrick Altoft on July 29, 2009

Just been watching Dragons Den and listening to the guys from Servicing Stop getting £100,000 investment (if I remember correctly) from Deborah Meaden in return for a 30% stake in the business.

It seems like a good idea but they are missing a big trick with their search engine marketing – the site is optimised (see the footer links) for things like Ford Service but there are no geographical pages!

They need to set up pages targeting “car service Leeds” in the natural search results and work with each garage to register with Google Local / Maps to get listed in those results too. There is so much local search volume around this industry that the potential is huge – I’ve worked on a friends garage site before and even a couple of good rankings in one small town can drive a steady stream of business. Multiply that across hundreds of locations and the potential is huge.

Search volume for servicing cars and models is small but if they can rank for the geographical modifiers across every town in the UK the site could drive thousands of leads every single day.

Servicing Stop

From the BBC overview (video highlights available too):

Essex brothers Oliver and Toby step into the Den with a spanner mascot who they hope will not put a spanner in their works.

Their pitch is for a nationwide car servicing network doesn’t stall however as they report a year one turnover of £1.5m based on their ability to undercut main dealers by between 30 and 50%.

Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Leeds based digital & SEO agency Branded3. Patrick also runs Blogstorm.

You can get our blog posts delivered for free by email every day - simply add your email address to the box below or alternatively grab the RSS feed.

Read some similar posts

{ 52 comments… read them below or add one }

Nigellus 29 Jul 2009 at 10:58 pm
Find me on Twitter

That is very true, I think people just seem to think that throwing money at a business is the answer yet there is so much you can do without breaking the bank. I think these guys will do well; at this time people are looking for ways to save money where ever they can. There are loads of people who drive used cars that a no longer in warranty who could do with the savings. Those who drive new cars that are still under warranty will obviously need to go to a main dealer or else they run the risk of making their warranty void.

More comments from Nigellus
Stefan 29 Jul 2009 at 11:22 pm
Find me on Flickr | StumbleUpon | Twitter

Optimizing for your local market is getting more and more important nowadays. Strangely enough there’s still plenty of cities no one has optimized for, which gives you a great advantage.

More comments from Stefan
rhyswynne 30 Jul 2009 at 12:33 am
Find me on Digg | Facebook | Twitter

It always amazes me how rubbishly optimized some of these Dragon Den sites are. I remember Peter Jones (who I know has had some internet based ventures) asked a diamond retailer where he ranked with his company name on Google (UK). He was barely on page one.

Nevertheless they’re on Dragon’s Den and SEO’ers are not, so they must be doing something right! :)

More comments from rhyswynne
pete.campbell 30 Jul 2009 at 8:57 am
Find me on Twitter

Looking through the websites source code, there a lot of other search engine optimisation tweaks that this website is missing in addition to the geographical pages.

No W3C Validation, Heading Tags, DIV’s, Title Tags, Alt Tags.
Either way, props to the company gaining the investment, but I would still highly suggest they invest in a extended search marketing campaign.

More comments from pete.campbell
S Ravenscroft 30 Jul 2009 at 9:33 am

I have had first hand expiriance of Servicing Stop, just before Christmas my 1 year old S-Type Jaguar needed a service, after looking at my options I decided on Servicing Stop, sounded good, £249.00, collected, serviced, cleaned and returned, all warranty protected etc. Imagine my frustration when I did not get my car back for 3 months. They had franchised the work to a local garage who collected it and then subsiquently blew the engine up. The garage claim the turbo had blown, it went to Jaguar under warranty, Jaguar would not touch it under warranty as after many weeks it was decided the garage had over filled the oil, this exess oil was then forced up through the intercooler, through the turbo’s then the engine and back out both exausts, final diagnosis – Engine seized. Yeah fantastic.
after many weeks wrangling back and forth with the garage blaming Jaguar because they stated the engine was not seized when it went to them, Jaguar stating they had not even ran the car.
By this stage I was resigned to the only option left – legal action.
Fortunatly it did not come to that. Servicing Stop finally acepted responsibility and arranged for a new engine to be fitted. I did have the use of a hire car while all this was happening.
Now while I accept it was not Servicing Stop’s fault it was their responsibility and the fact that it took them 3 months to sort it out I feel was totaly unacceptable.
Having said that they did accept responsibility in the end and I ended up with a full refund, a brand new engine, compensation for the trouble and my next service free of charge.
Now you ask would I use them for the next service?
I would have to say yes, I understand the position Servicing Stop would have been in with their garage not accepting responsibility ( I wouldn’t want to admit that I had just blown up a very expensive engine) In the end it was sorted and I had a personal apology from Oliver and feel confidant when I call Servicing Stop next time and speak to Oliver to book my next service he will pesonaly make sure that my car has the best service in the world.

SEO-Doctor 30 Jul 2009 at 10:43 am

Local search SEO is important, especially for businesses going down the franchise model route. I’m currently finding a lot of keywords that do not trigger the Google local/maps to show in the UK SERPs – this can be frustrating.

More comments from SEO-Doctor
Gregor Spowart 30 Jul 2009 at 11:21 am

Patrick,

I’m interested in your view of the pages on this site for each manufacturer. They’re very similar for each manufacturer, just with models changed and the manufacturers name changed in the text.

I think it’s unique enough not to trigger a duplicate content filter but others disagree with me. What are your thoughts?

richsal 05 Aug 2009 at 11:16 am

I have marketed my business with the help of a company called Premium Solutions.co.uk, they tweeked my website to tidy it up and used SEO techniques and tags to get me to the number 1 position on google, which gave me higher positions on other search engines like MSN and Yahoo. I totally agree with all of the above, localised marketing is of upmost importance in the current climate and optomising your web presence is parramount or you might as well not have one. People are looking for your services, you have just got to make sure they find you straight away and before they discover your competition……..Good luck

Ade 12 Aug 2009 at 5:09 pm

Service stop will be picking my car up next week. Will keep you posted on their service. £156 (10% Aug discount) for a Seat Ibiza is not bad my last service from my local Seat dealer cost £235. lets see how it goes.

Victor 13 Aug 2009 at 12:53 pm

Can I suggest another service http://www.garages4you.com/ it is a company based in Edinburgh.

The customer service is excellent. If there is a problem they sort it out straight away for you. You can choose a time when they should contact you on phone to talk about the service you need for the car and they call exactly when you wanted them to do it! The prices is very competitive. Only downside is it is service mainly for Scotland and North of England.

Onejuan 20 Aug 2009 at 12:48 pm

This doesn’t surprise me in the slightest from my experience with these guys. I had 3 different people call me in response to my web-submitted enquiry, each of them lost the details of the previous conversation and I only got my originally booked service slot after considerable chasing and complaining. I had a phone call telling me that there were 3 things that needed attention, to the tune of £725+VAT, did I want to go ahead? I said I’d get the car back and get some competitive quotes first. The first dealer I called said the first issue didn’t need work at all, the second was a case of “you can fix it but it’s not going to affect your ride or safety” while the third was “You need to fix that asap. It’ll cost £70+VAT inclusive of labour”. Now I’ve got the car back with no log book stamp, no report on what they had discovered and while they’d vacuumed the interior the car was decidedly unwashed. A shambles at best, at worst a great example of why garages have such a poor reputation.

V Annoyed 28 Aug 2009 at 8:33 pm

Servicing Stop Ltd is lacking. The garage my car was sent to was pathetic, they where late, did not do the work what was paid for, I had to send the car back to have them finish it off. Their customer service was rubbish. Would highly recommend you just search for a local garage. As all these people will do is sent it to any old place that may or may not be any good. Oh and the garage overfilled my oil by 25% on my dipstick. that would have killed my engine if I hadn’t noticed.

mike 03 Sep 2009 at 9:19 pm

i pick cars up for servicing stop. all i say is cut out the middle man

S Ravenscroft 03 Sep 2009 at 9:39 pm

Me again,
Well I took the plunge, my car was due for another service last week so I booked again with servicing Stop.
To be fair I did call Oliver Ritchmond directly, the last garage is no longer used, it was collected this morning by an approaved Bosh Service centre in leicester. I was given a promise that my engine would not be blown up this time.
I was called at about 15:00 to say i needed a pollen filter, price agreed and work carried out. By 16:30 the car was returned all serviced, book stamped and car cleaned.(have to say the wheels were not cleaned well but to be fair I used to own my own valeting business so am probably over critical.
As promised my service was done free of charge (apart from the pollen filter)
So all in all I am happy with the outcome.
No matter what goes wrong (and things do) the true test of any company is how they respond to the problem, in my case it took longer than it should but never the less the issues were dealt with.
Servicing Stop offer a good value product and as long as they keep tracking in the right direction will built a strong company with a good future.

mike 04 Sep 2009 at 6:56 am

just have a look at car craft auto centre site its alot cheaper and thay offer the same service free collection and wash and vac. service stop also use them.
service stop dont even look at the car we give them a price and thay just put a cut on it

Ian 25 Sep 2009 at 9:24 am

cv

Ian 25 Sep 2009 at 3:59 pm

Had my BMW serviced by them, They picked the car up at the agreed time and and the guy who picked it up said it only going around the corner to car craft. They called at lunchtime to say it needed brakes and tyres done and they quoted me a price, I declined on this as I knew I could get it a LOT cheaper, and if you also look up carcraft reviews on google you would not want your car going there !! so they dropped the car back of to me. I asked they guy for sheet which showed what had been and he said it will be posted to me. Y

Ian 25 Sep 2009 at 4:02 pm

Had my BMW serviced by them, They picked the car up at the agreed time and the guy who picked it up said its only going around the corner to car craft. They called at lunchtime to say it needed brakes and tyres done and they quoted me a price, I declined on this as I knew I could get it a LOT cheaper, and if you also look up carcraft reviews on google you would not want your car going there !! so they dropped the car back of to me. I asked they guy for sheet which showed what had been done and he said it will be posted to me. That was two weeks ago and I have chased them everyday as I want to know what I paid for. Would I use them again, NO WAY, Use a local garage, dont use these cowboys !!

mike 30 Sep 2009 at 7:07 am

what car craft did it go to

Ian 30 Sep 2009 at 10:49 am

Sheffield, And I am still waiting for a receipt and the sheet showing what work was carried out. I have now called them 7 times and sent 4 emails. I have never once received a reply from an email or been called back. I feel I have been fleeced and am being treated like an idiot by them. A message to Servicingstop… I am a customer, treat me like one, as good company’s do, I paid you a lot of money and feel I have had NO value for money. SORT IT OUT !!

mike 30 Sep 2009 at 6:03 pm

to be fair ian car craft only do the work. servicing stop do all the rest like take pay ment , send reports off to customers and all that kind of stuff .

T Howard 01 Oct 2009 at 6:57 pm

I’ve recently experienced Servicing Stop’s mind-blowingly bad customer service. My car had to go back to the garage twice after it was serviced, and the whole thing took a month from start to finish. I wrote to Oliver Richmond but he didn’t even bother to reply.

Full story here on my blog
http://incompetencetoday.blogspot.com/2009/09/review-of-servicing-stop-ltd.html

jo 01 Oct 2009 at 9:10 pm

I have had the worst experience of a car service with servicingstop (still e-mailing them and telephoning them 4 weeks later). My complaint still hasn’t been dealt with and after the initial telephone call, to say my car was missing for 4 days (no-one told me where it was or how how long it would be gone) I have incurred a further charge of £90 in taxi fares while my car was missing. I WOULD ADVISE ANYONE UNHAPPY WITH THIS COMPANY TO CONTACT TRADING STANDARDS. Office of fair trading and trading standards have been great!

James 02 Oct 2009 at 1:37 pm

My Service was great!

It’s such a shame that a handful of people can give such a fantastic service a bad name. It is a classic example of when you upset 1 person they tell 5 people but if you make 1 person happy they are unlikely to tell anyone else – the ‘British Public’ full of enthusiasm! I saw the guys on DD on TV and had my service done yesterday, I thought I should post a review but I cannot believe the bad press from this blog. I felt the service was beyond my expectations! The car was collected early at 8:20 and it was returned around 17:00. The car has never looked so good and it drives like a dream!

Very Satisfied.

mike 02 Oct 2009 at 9:37 pm

james where do you live

Zoe 14 Oct 2009 at 11:46 pm

Wow, I agree James – I used Servicing Stop and they were excellent!!!

I read a bunch of reviews; good ones and bad ones, but decided to take the plunge
because they were totally cheaper than my usual garage….. my car got collected and delivered back when they said it would (same day), and the people on the phone were super helpful!! I would recommend them to anyone – AWESOME company! :)

Rob 26 Oct 2009 at 7:15 pm

Worst service I’ve error received from a car garage, wish I’d stuck to main dealer and that’s saying something!
Servicing stop give you a quote of the price when you book your service, don’t be fooled, read what it actually includes, and if you don’t know what your car’s servicing schedule is then you could get screwed.
Servicing stop’s “Full Service” is not specific to your car, its basically Oil & Filter.

My dealer quoted £260 for a complete 27k Service for my car.
Servicing stop quoted £165 for a “Full Service”
Great deal right? oh how wrong I was.

About lunch time I received a call from them saying the Garage said for my particular car it needs a gearbox oil change and a coolant flush, at an extra cost of £100! Making my new service £265, no longer a £100 saving it’s actually going to cost me £5 more than my dealer.

I provided servicing stop them with all the details of my car when I made my booking, why could they not have told me this then?

Rob 26 Oct 2009 at 7:29 pm

To further frustrate me they delivered my car back to me at 18:20 and its not even properly cleaned!
Lesson for today: Don’t bother with a middle man for serving, straight to main dealer or local garage.

Shana 05 Nov 2009 at 3:59 pm

Servicing Stop are rubbish! The bill came to £850, as they found a number of things wrong with the car (which may have been true) but I’m not sure it was a saving on costs. But the worse thing was the service. The car was returned at 8pm not the original 4 to 6pm that we were told. They then revised the time to 6pm and then again 6.30pm with it finally arriving at 8pm and them saying there was traffic (15 minute journey!)
We tried contacting Servicing Stop to complain and b asically they don’t give a toss as they never responded back. The garage told us they had received our complaint but didn’t give a monkeys, just wanted their dosh.
Definitely wouldn’t recommend it…. cut out the middle man and go to a trusted independent local garage!

mike 14 Nov 2009 at 11:07 am

rob. your the one that rang them so its your falt

Han195 14 Dec 2009 at 3:28 pm

I also had a bad experience of servcing stop. There was no consistency with who I spoke to. The people on the end of the phone changed their story a few times as what was wrong with my car, trying to charge me for things that were supposed to be part of the servcie. They were also rude and laughed down the phone at me when I was unsure about something.

I chose to not get anything done by them and took my car to a recommended local dealer who said half of the things servicing stop reccommended me to have done didn’t even need doing and they were charging me double what my local garage charged for tyres and a new cam belt.

Please do not use this company, they are a sham! Support local business instead. I don’t know what Deborah Meaden was thinking backing them!

Joe Lee 18 Dec 2009 at 6:02 pm

I too had bad experience with them. I sent my Lexus for an Interim Service last week. It costs £100 less than what Lexus normally charged. While my car was with them, they called me and told me my coolant needs flush & top up (£49), the same with my brake fluid (£49), my wiper needs changing, my brake pads need to change (£95) and the same with my tire.

I begin to suspect a con as I just changed my wipers a month ago. I told them to just change the brake pads, but I wanted the old brakes pad left in the boot of my car. They then told me the brake pad can still last a few months and I could change it later with the tires. (They rang me at my work where all phone calls are recorded, so I have an MP3 file of the phone conversation)

Once I get the car back, I found the engine oil was 3 cm above the maximum level. Incidentally, Lexus rang me about a safety checks on my car’s power steering and I sent it in two days ago. Lexus also includes a free check and which I ask them to check the engine oil level as well. Lexus confirmed the oil is overfilled and they drain the excess oil for me. Lexus gave me all ticks in the green box on their check report, ie. no problem with Coolant, brakes, tires, etc…

I am keen to see how Servicing Stop and Deborah Meaden are going to do to regain our confidence on their services.

ferryman 06 Jan 2010 at 10:15 pm

as an indepenent garage i relish your comments on servicing stop (except the positive ones)I have recently read the criterea for joining them as an authorised repairer and can only say that I am amazed that any garage has been desperate enough to join up,it seems that s/s are only interested in profit gained by screwing both the garage and the customer, by my calulations they will make over 100 pounds for a full service on an average family car,for a few minutes admin,the garage accepts all the liabilities and is not supported in any other way by s/s my advice to any potential victims is to contact local garages that are part of the good garage scheme,I am a member of this as well as another large organisation, and have been very impressed with their aproach to the garage and the customers needs.I also would like to point out that some of the comments made supporting servicing stop seem somewhat suspicious, it would not be unexpected to assume that certain people have a vested interest in trying to salvage this companys reputation.I feel that these type of companies do not deserve to succeed because they are purely profit motivated,If they provided a fairer deal to the garage and customer,invested in training & support for the garages then maybe my views would be different,as it is the only way the garage can profit is to spend as little time on your car as possible.to finish on a more personal note I am not a fan of dragons den nor can assume to know much about it,but I will say that I find the dragons are are greedy egomaniacs that are not happy with amassing huge fortunes they also require fame.
dont be taken in by these charlatans

DT 19 Jan 2010 at 12:51 pm

Completely agree with Ferryman. We are a small independent garage trading for 16 years and have been recently approached by SS. We pride ourselves on our standard of service and the rates we are paid by SS are frankly insulting. Unfortunately there are still some cowboys out there who practise as motor engineers they are in the minority and give the rest of us a bad name. Any reputable independent will explain any issues concerning your vehicle and a full service will be exactly that! SS approached us as we are members of “the good garage scheme” but frankly they pick any motor engineers up who advertise and will use the ones who charge the least. Cheapest is not always the best! as the saying goes ‘you get what you pay for’. My advise is word of mouth ask friends neighbours who they would recommend. The good garage scheme is also a good start. One last thing please dont assume because you have a new vehicle you have to take it to the dealer for its service because of the validity of the warranty. WRONG! any independent garage can do the service as long as your service book is stamped and any parts used are recommended by the manufacturer. Good independents will do an excellent job without the price tag of a dealer. Obviously we declined to join SS we rely on our good reputation!

StevieB 21 Jan 2010 at 2:29 am

I recently did a FULL service on my Range Rover V8, took me half a day, changed oils/ filters cleaned spark plugs and set gaps, wheels off checked brake wear and cleaned sensors, carried out all the items on S/S checklist pdf from their website and cross referred to RR servicing manual.
Cost me about £50, a few grazed knuckles and used my own tools. I enjoyed every moment of it.
Got the car back on the road same day!

cass 26 Jan 2010 at 4:59 pm

to be 100% clear, Deborah Meaden has no involvement with this firm, the investment did NOT go thro’

Rob 26 Jan 2010 at 6:26 pm

@cass do you have a citation to back your comment?

Either way, this company is still a waste of time, with or without Deborah Meaden.

T Howard 26 Jan 2010 at 9:20 pm

@Rob, I have a blog where I’ve been writing about Servicing Stop and I contacted Deborah Meaden via her website a few days ago inviting her to comment on Servicing Stop. Cass, who is Ms Meaden’s PR, replied shortly afterwards, advising me that Ms Meaden did not in fact invest in Servicing Stop following the Dragons’ Den programme.

Given that Cass’s comments appeared immediately following my enquiry via Ms Meaden’s website, I have no reason to doubt that they are genuine. I linked to this thread in my blog, which explains why Cass also commented here.

See all my blog posts about Servicing Stop:

http://incompetencetoday.blogspot.com/search/label/Servicing%20Stop%20Ltd

Janet Hardman 16 Feb 2010 at 4:41 pm

I have just had my first experience of Servicestop and after reading some of the reviews I was really worried that I had made a really bad choice. I have to say I have been delighted with my experience, no problems. My car was picked up at 9.30am and returned beautifully clean, serviced and MOT’d by 3.15pm. No hazzles whatsoever. My advice is give it a go and don’t be put off by the bad reviews – not all garages are the same!

Josef Johnson 18 Feb 2010 at 3:17 pm

I think the biggest problem is that garage selection is random so you can get lucky I guess.

In my case I didn’t, the cheap service costs are just a ploy to lure you in because any other work that needs to be done is the same if not more expensive than a main dealer.

The best option is just take it to a dealer or a local garage you know. It isn’t like they vet the garages that they use which is the main reason I went with them cos stupidly I thought a business would be concerned about who represents them.

Nice idea, badly implemented. They have my money though so I guess not that badly implemented !

Sue 29 Mar 2010 at 4:13 pm

We booked a service through Serving Stop because we were persuaded that it was a high quality, reasonably priced service with solid backing. We have a Smart car and usually have it serviced at Mercedes. The car was having some trouble with the engine so we asked Serving Stop if they could get the battery/ engine looked at at the same time. They said no problem.

The car was collected and taken to a local garage we were later phoned and told the car needed a new battery and a number of other items adding up, with the service, to a cool £920. This more than we wanted to pay but we wanted the car on the road and safe. It was returned later that day and the car still has problems with the engine .. the battery wasn’t the problem and when we asked about it they said that they had checked it, it was charging but they had repalced it because we had asked them to. This wasn’t accurate we had no redress, they would not even come a look at the car again.

To top it all we had to take the car to Mercedes anyway. We found out that Mercedes charge £70 for a new tyre, fitted, balanced and including VAT. Servicing Stop chargeg £75 for the tyre, plus balancing, plus VAT.

The whole set up is and was a rip off and the after sales service was awful and rude. They charged us for items we did not need. WE WILL NOT BE USING SERVICING STOP AGAIN.

Boomer 30 Mar 2010 at 7:42 pm

Don’t anyone be fooled by the goodgaragescheme, it is run by a company who sell engine additives to the garage, the garage has to buy a minimum qty of bottles and sell them as part of the service to qualify for the scheme, adding to the cost of your service. You dont have to be a good garage (though many of their members are), you just have to spend big money with a clever company who are capitalising on mistrust within the garage sector, don’t believe me? check you bill and tell me whether it has a charge for a certain brand of engine flush engine flush.

DT 01 Apr 2010 at 11:54 am

In reply to Boomer comment, please do not compare a Good Garage Scheme member to those of SS, we are an independent garage and have been trading for 17 years we have also used Forte products within our servicing for 17 years and have only been a member of GGS for 1 year. Yes the GGS is run by Forte but you have been mis-informed regarding buying the products. There is no minimum qty and we do not spend BIG money with forte. As i said earlier we have always used forte products in our servicing,any full service should have an engine flush and have a conditioner added as standard. If you want to pay £99 for a ’service ‘ as some garages advertise you only pay for oil and filter which is not a full service as is recommended by the manufacturer. The reason we use forte (there are alternative products on the market) is because it is the best and we always provide the best quality products to our customers. If anyone has a problem with a GGS member then they can complain directly to the GGS who investigate. The GGS is excellent for people who are wary of the after sales motor industry and gives them an excellent first point of call. Each garage has feedback which can be viewed by potential customers before they decide who to use. We always find word of mouth is the best recommendation.

Nick 12 May 2010 at 1:05 pm

After the house the car is the most expensive thing that any of us will ever own.

Anyone who then takes a chance on getting it looked after by rolling the dice and finding a garage on the internet must be mad!

Servicing Stop (and others) simply find a garage, screw them for price, add a hefty profit margin and there you go!

If the garage is being screwed on price then they may be tempted to find ‘extras’ to bunp up the bill whihc makes your chaep service more expensive than ot should have been.

What checks are made by these jokers on the quality of the garage? (it would appear from previous posts very few or none)? What checks are made on the quality of parts fitted? (I would guess again none)?

If you want to play the lottery fair enough, but don’t complain when your number doesn’t come up.

If you want a decent garage find one by reputation or find one with a recognised quality standard (Kitemark or Motor Code)

If price is the most important factor in your decision then negoatiate with the garage common sense dictates that you should be able to beat the Servicing Stop price.

In life you get what you pay for – don’t be fooled.

Muhammad Salman 24 May 2010 at 8:47 pm

A BIG NO NO ! My first experience with this company is terrible. In regards with my MOT, I was told to change brake pads, wipers and a few more things totalling the bill to around 700 quids. I knew the brakes were perfectly fine so decided not to go for MOT with them and lose the MOT fee instead. Got MOT done by BOSCH garage in my area, and the job was done in 150 quids, not to mention that most of the work mentioned by SS was not requied at first place.

These guys are a big blot in the name of trust and to top it up more, the customer services is appauling. Disgusting company, would never go back and would preach everybody not to even pass by them, not to even think of it.

Elliott 04 Jun 2010 at 8:55 am

Thank you for your comments. Very useful. I will now use the good garage scheme as you suggested. Kind Regards,

Jim T 04 Jun 2010 at 2:35 pm

I've been surfing the net – thinking about trying an online car service for may Audi A3. It is just out of warranty but I would like a full manufacturer's service. I can only find two sites offering this
NSN – http://www.nsn.co.uk
and
Blackcircles – http://www.Blackcircles.com/servicing
The rest seem to be offering menu based "full service"

Has anybody tried either of these services?

Rach 17 Jun 2010 at 1:36 pm

I have never commented on a site such as this before, but my car was booked in with this company yesterday for a full service & MOT. They called to say I needed new rear shock absorbers, and as it was wear and tear, it was not covered by the warranty – price £439! I told them No, and they quoted another long list of jobs that required doing, I also declined these. I contacted the main dealer who would only have charged £250 for new shock absorbers, but actually it was still covered under my warranty, so I can get them done for free.
The garage where the work was done also confirmed they were only charging half of what Servicing Stop quoted me, and confirmed it did not reflect well on them at all as a customer would only use them once after being ripped off.
I will never use them again, and wish I had read this first as a one day job is turning into a 3 day one once my car has been fixed and retested for the MOT.

Sarah 25 Jun 2010 at 1:32 pm

My apologies if its not allowed to leave links to other websites but I thought I would share this one as its been very helpful to me http://www.findmeagarage.co.uk

Steph Savill 25 Jun 2010 at 4:53 pm

I think the motor industry should do more here to raise awareness levels re standards and choices here – there are other garage brokers who do much the same as SS. Sadly few motorists realise that garages aren't licensed and mechanics don't have to be qualified. Pick a bad garage because you don't know any better and your car can be dangerous. I have learned about this industry the hard way after my daughter was ripped off and I firmly believe that the best way to check if your garage is one of the best is if they are either an ATA employer, hold a BSI Kitemark or operate to a fully approved OFT Code. I now run a 'good garage' website for women (because few women enjoy visiting/dealing with garages or franchised dealerships, especially when we're on our own). Our garage subscribers all sign the female friendly FOXY Promise to 'never overcharge, patronise or sell women services they don't need'. A good standard for men too! If you'd like to tell us chapter and verse about your good or bad feedback, please do so at FOXY Choice http://www.foxychoice.com.

Boss 07 Jul 2010 at 11:13 am

We are on Servicing Stop's list of garages and we are very proud of the standard of work that we carry out and we believe that we have a brilliant customer relations

Service Stop I'm afraid are pretty useless at organising anything,they constantly ring us when we have a Service Stop job in to try and say to the customer that they need a "brake fluid flush" or "antifreeze change" even better an "engine flush" when quite clearly the mileage/age of the car we are working on does not warrant this "extra" work,we obviously decline these offers stating that the vehicle does not need these items.

I also do not think that they are cheap,so far I have been paid more from Servicing Stop for a service than I would have charged the customer for the same service(we don't collect or wash the car,don't believe it's free,we get paid £25 + vat to wash n vac and collect/deliver plus £4.50 + vat for fluid top -ups???????).

Michael 20 Aug 2010 at 9:28 am

I had my Mercedes Services with UK services logistics.While i was going through the web I came across various site like servicestop and others.What made me choose Uk services logistics were their service was tailored for Mercedes owners.I call them and found out that as a specialist they would also look at your invoice if it had been service with a mercedes benz dealer to see if you have been overcharge.I found this very helpful.They also provided free technical information.They Service my car through a reputable Mercedes benz dealer.Collected and delivered the car as well as wash and vacuum it.I will definately recommend their service. http://www.ukserviceslogistics.com

Leave a Comment (registration is optional)

Registration is free, takes about 5 seconds and is worth doing.

You can use these HTML tags and attributes:
<a href=""> <b> <blockquote> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>