Service pricing

[XC70 Driver]

Originally Posted by Clan

Brake fluid is not part of ANY service , It is advised every 2 years , it is not compulsory or automatically added to a service quotation .. you cant get the staff these days ..

Also if you mention you have done very low mileage since last time , ask them for the Volvo ESSENTIAL Service which is a minimalistic one for such situations ...

Hi Clan

Could you please tell me when I should have the coolant and anti-freeze changed on my 2019 D5 XC90 in line with the Volvo service schedule?

I have my car booked in for its second service next month at Stoneacre Volvo and they are recommending a brake fluid, coolant & anti-freeze change as the car is 2 years old. I can understand the brake fluid change as per your comments above, but they also state that as the car will be over two years old, from now on the brake fluid, coolant & anti-freeze should be changed each year!

Is this correct as I have never had a car that needed coolant and brake fluid changed every year including my last two Volvos. If this is this case, why is this not part of the Volvo service package that I purchased when new?

My local dealership was recently taken over by Stoneacre so I can only imagine this is an income generation exercise and not a service requirement, but it would be good to know when these two service items should be done.
I emailed Volvo Customer service to check if these service items were a Volvo recommendation and they referred me to my local dealer. When I call to speak to the service department at the dealership, I get put through to their call centre and they try to sell me these two service items again!!

Thanks
John

[Adrian888]

Ask to speak to Volvo UK technical team, ask the dealer to email the extract from Volvo’s service schedule. Phone a different dealer. However sounds like they are taking the proverbial big time. The most frequent change of brake fluid i have come across is 2 years and coolant at 5 years which often co-incides with cambelt. As an aside i have found Volvo UK too keen to pass the buck to their dealers instead of supporting the customer. Disingenuous.

[Zebster]

Originally Posted by Clan

Every car which passes through a volvo workshop for what ever reason gets a health check which is pretty comprehensive ... so poor staff training again ...

and NO a mot is not a health check they won't inflate the tyres or fill the wash bottle or tell you the aux belt is about to fall off for example ... ..

Fair point, but fortunately I'm not a lazy moron!

[Fursty Ferret]

I have my car booked in for its second service next month at Stoneacre Volvo and they are recommending a brake fluid, coolant & anti-freeze change as the car is 2 years old.

Stoneacre, innit? They recommended a brake fluid change on a brand new car when I booked it in for a minor warranty issue just after buying it. As part of the once-over alluded to above they'll check for water in the fluid anyway.

If it was an item that related to the safety of the car it'd be in the service schedule. It's not, therefore it's not an issue. Statistically you're probably more at risk from them introducing contamination into the system or forgetting to tighten the wheel nuts after doing the bleed.

[Clan]

Originally Posted by XC70 Driver

Hi Clan

Could you please tell me when I should have the coolant and anti-freeze changed on my 2019 D5 XC90 in line with the Volvo service schedule?

I have my car booked in for its second service next month at Stoneacre Volvo and they are recommending a brake fluid, coolant & anti-freeze change as the car is 2 years old. I can understand the brake fluid change as per your comments above, but they also state that as the car will be over two years old, from now on the brake fluid, coolant & anti-freeze should be changed each year!

Is this correct as I have never had a car that needed coolant and brake fluid changed every year including my last two Volvos. If this is this case, why is this not part of the Volvo service package that I purchased when new?

My local dealership was recently taken over by Stoneacre so I can only imagine this is an income generation exercise and not a service requirement, but it would be good to know when these two service items should be done.
I emailed Volvo Customer service to check if these service items were a Volvo recommendation and they referred me to my local dealer. When I call to speak to the service department at the dealership, I get put through to their call centre and they try to sell me these two service items again!!

Thanks
John

Hello John ,

It is becoming more apparent on here that the service advisors are not being trained properly , and/or they are recent to the dealer .
Utter lies they have told you ...

Volvo coolant has never had a change period built into any service , Neither do volvo have a recommended change period . It is the finest coolant you will get anywhere it lasts indefinitely . Its condition and freezing point is always checked on each service with a spectrometer which is mandatory equipment . I can vouch for it having used it from the 1970's in all my cars .. My 1988 343 still had its original coolant , still bright green ( as it was then ) and a freezing point of -37C .

If they are saying your coolant needs changing tell them the car is still under warranty and to charge it to that .

There is one exception .. back in 2010 the factory had a supply issue and the coolant they had to use was a more "standard" one which barely lasted 2 years it went a weak browny yellow colour it was an inhibitor problem it still always protected down to -37 C . This was cured by about 2015 when the cars had been through the service system .

Brake fluid is a recommendation only of every 2 years . in my experience most do not have it changed and even when manky brown and obviously neglected after 10 years or so it has never caused a master cylinder failure when changed .

A brake fluid and coolant change would bring them in around £200 + vat I would think , ( about £1000 a day ) a nice little earner !

[XC70 Driver]

Thank you all for your replies and sharing your knowledge. As I thought this is work that is not needed so I will ignore the sales patter and go with what the technician says is needed at the service along with the Volvo service schedule as per Clan and Adrian888’s comments.

I hope this thread will help others to make an informed decision regarding these additional service items.

Kind regards

John

[XC90Mk1]

Originally Posted by Clan

Hello John ,

It is becoming more apparent on here that the service advisors are not being trained properly , and/or they are recent to the dealer .
Utter lies they have told you ...

Volvo coolant has never had a change period built into any service , Neither do volvo have a recommended change period . It is the finest coolant you will get anywhere it lasts indefinitely . Its condition and freezing point is always checked on each service with a spectrometer which is mandatory equipment . I can vouch for it having used it from the 1970's in all my cars .. My 1988 343 still had its original coolant , still bright green ( as it was then ) and a freezing point of -37C .

If they are saying your coolant needs changing tell them the car is still under warranty and to charge it to that .

There is one exception .. back in 2010 the factory had a supply issue and the coolant they had to use was a more "standard" one which barely lasted 2 years it went a weak browny yellow colour it was an inhibitor problem it still always protected down to -37 C . This was cured by about 2015 when the cars had been through the service system .

Brake fluid is a recommendation only of every 2 years . in my experience most do not have it changed and even when manky brown and obviously neglected after 10 years or so it has never caused a master cylinder failure when changed .

A brake fluid and coolant change would bring them in around £200 + vat I would think , ( about £1000 a day ) a nice little earner !

I think the issue here is that the service ‘advisors’ are now really salespersons trying to upsell things. Not a huge profit in honest work, better to sell useless things.

I change the brake fluid every 2 years and you often see little other than a slight change in fluid colour. I have never had visible moisture or poor fluid come out.

I also changed the coolant in my 2012 again it was all fine.

I would do it myself as it costs me so little but not sure it’s absolutely necessary.

[XC70 Driver]

Just to clarify the staff at the dealership are very good when you get the chance to deal with them in person. It is the call centres that you now must speak to when making a service booking who try to sell these additional services, or it was in my case. But I do take your point on upselling being done at the dealers as well.

On closer inspection the letter I refer to in my previous post was in fact two letters. The first which has the Volvo logo on the top is asking me to book my service and recommends an Anti-Viral Bacterial Sanitiser.

The second letter is from Stoneacre motor group and states the manufacturer/dealer recommends these additional service items (brake fluid and Coolant change) and this is what I found confusing as they are writing to me as a Volvo dealership.

Anyway, I will stop rambling on about it but I just thought it worth noting and I think I just miss my Volvo dealership being a locally owned business where you spoke to the service staff direct😊

[Philip Fisher]

Originally Posted by XC90Mk1

I think the issue here is that the service ‘advisors’ are now really salespersons trying to upsell things. Not a huge profit in honest work, better to sell useless things.

I change the brake fluid every 2 years and you often see little other than a slight change in fluid colour. I have never had visible moisture or poor fluid come out.

I also changed the coolant in my 2012 again it was all fine.

I would do it myself as it costs me so little but not sure it’s absolutely necessary.

I hate Stoneacre. Awful awful. The worst of the chain dealers. And I hate all the big chains.

The small chains or small independent dealers are far better.

As an aside I once told an Audi feedback survey that I would rather have a Prostate examination than deal with Doncaster Audi again......

[GJB]

This is the main problem the dealers that we used to have dealers who where customer led but now we are getting big companies who are money led and don't care about the customer at all .I was informed by my local dealer they could not sell me a genuine Volvo 2 year extended warranty at approx £700 but a warranty from them at £800 + in the end I had to find out from Volvo who would do the genuine warranty and ended up doing it over the phone
And if anything goes wrong the local dealer knows nothing about personal service it is a case of see you in 2 weeks. The loss of dealers who care is in very short supply as those that did are no longer dealers due to Volvo sacking them as dealers and handing it over to the big could not care less companies.