Service History

[Hendry]

Just wondering, is anyone else a bit pedantic about this? Like having a good bit of history with the car I mean rather than just a book full of stamps? A paperwork trail and piles of receipts to give you an idea of how the cars been treated through its life and how well looked after its been and actually enjoy sifting through the receipts and reading whats been done, seeing whats what?

 

Its something I always look for even on older cars (unless mega cheap in which case I dont expect it and it doesnt really matter because its a throwaway car) and actually keep all the invoices and receipts for my cars and they go with the car when its sold or disposed of, even if its next trip may be to the crusher. 

 

Also find original dealer plates, sticker or keyring a nice touch of originality, even on a bland, boring post-2000 VAG or Vauxhall shit. 

[Schaefft]

None of my cars had any service history apart from the S8. Its great to have it, its not a deciding factor though. Since you can check a car's MOT history online now, its less of an issue anyway.

[paulscavalier]

I've got 17 years worth of history on the blue cavalier receipts and repairs and the service book for the previous 7 years. On the other cav nothing before I took it on in 2013. On the Honda we got in touch with the garage that serviced it who told us the previous owner had it from new and kept all the receipts and was surprised all we had was the service book. They said they would contact him to see if he had anything. Turned out he had kept all the receipts from jobs done on it and he dropped off a pile of paperwork which the garage sent to me. The car might have been a bit tired externally but mechanically it had a lot done to it. So although it had 154,000 miles on it,every time something came up it got done. I suspect it got traded in because the exhaust manifold was starting to leak fumes and he decided to call it a day

[Cavcraft]

It doesn't really matter unless it's a very low mileage car (and that's less important now with the advent of on-line MOT history checks) or some expensive second hand top class thing like a Roller.

[Vantman]

I have 26 years of history with my scruffy Saab,every receipt for work done,a service book with 34 stamps in,dealer sticker etc.. It's just rolled over to 56000 and has just returned from the garage after suffering head gasket failure!

[sierraman]

Sub £2k I'd buy on face value, I wouldn't expect any history to be honest.

[Faker]

I've an 18 year old S3 with a full folder... catalogued from the original bill of sale. Nice to have.

[angle]

Another vote for 'yeah, but...'

 

My old Xantia had a massive stack of receipts, going back until new. The thing is, quite a big proportion appeared to be from a garage who were lazy / taking the piss / didn't know what they were doing. The previous OAP owner had clearly spent about £400 getting the heater to work, and got rid of it with it still broken. Ten minutes on Google, £50 to an auto electrician and it was fine. The screws holding the air box cover on were rusty and stripped, and took me a couple of hours to remove with a chisel and a hacksaw. But it'd had a new air filter every year. The LHM had been topped up every year but never changed, so was both black and pissing out of the breather. Etc...

 

On the other hand, SiC's Laguna came with a couple of pieces of paper, one of which was a receipt from a scrapyard. But, you can see from his thread he's put time and effort into getting it right and everything works. 

[rantingYoof]

Regardless of age, mileage, condition, I simply cannot get my head around someone who writes in an advert 'I've spent loads but have no receipts'.

 

And don't even get me started on those who admit to throwing away or misplacing the service book.

 

The other perspective on the 'It's just a 300 quid shitter' argument is that to some buyers, a full service book and/or receipts potentially increases the car's value by 25% at that level, at least to fuss pots like myself.

 

Obviously if you just want to punt it on and the space on the drive is more important then fair enough.

 

But yeah. I'm definitely over-concerned about such things, moreso in the 1500-2500 bracket where I reside.

 

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[MikeR]

I have a mot done by a picky examiner on a £500 car , it goes and drives and brakes in a straight line .....  thats all its history !

[sierraman]

I just look at what I've got in front of me if I'm spending a grand or so, some old dog eared receipts for some tracking back in 2008 tells you nothing.

 

I've absolutely nothing for the Mondeo I've got now, but on inspecting it when I bought it I could see it was in good condition and had plenty of life left in it.

[stephen01]

It's nice to have but on a car that visit these pages it's hardly a deal breaker. 

[Roverageous]

It’s nice to have but not essential. Funnily enough I’m very good at buying cars with a good record, but less good at filing everything to keep it up to date! It doesn’t really matter as I keep a spreadsheet with work that I’ve had completed and i dont expect any of my cars to have another owner after myself.

[bramz7]

I've had cars with pages of service history and they've still been crap, and then ones without anything be spot on, so it's hardly a confirmation of how good/bad anything is.

The old lady who owned the Tipo I have got the mechanic to check her tyre pressures for her all the time, and he had the cheek to charge her for that! Bear in mind she spent £££s keeping that thing going through various invoices to him and he didn't even have the good nature to do that FOC. Sometimes service history is just a history of how ripped off a previos owner has been.

[sierraman]

Sometimes people just don't keep receipts, I've done loads of stuff to the Focus, I've no receipts as such, whose going to benefit from me creating a catalogue of it's history? If I sold it tomorrow it's worth that little nobody would give a shit if it's got any history.

 

Never sold a car and had anyone ask for the history either, I did once sell a car that had a folder full of the stuff, the new owner binned it...

[HH-R]

I've had cars with pages of service history and they've still been crap, and then ones without anything be spot on, so it's hardly a confirmation of how good/bad anything is.

 

I was going to say the exact same thing, the best cars I've had have been £1000 and came with nothing but an MOT.

 

If I was paying mega bucks for a car I'd expect S/H though.

 

Got to be honest, I binned all of the receipts I had with my Micra when I part exed it. It was a pile of shit anyway though.

[Talbot]

I've never had service history with any of my cars.  And I could not care less.  Does it really matter if a water pump was changed 7 years ago?  Or if it had a set of tyres 4 years back?  What I'm interested in is the conidtion of the vehicle at this moment in time, and the history doesn't really tell me that.

 

Even the receipt for a "full service" just a few months ago says nothing more than money was spent.  What was actually done with that full service?  Not a clue.  Possibly lots, Possibly it was a rip-off and sod all was done.

 

Having worked (briefly) for a motor factors, and seen certain garages accept cars in for a cambelt change, charge the customer for a cambelt change, but strangely never actually buy any cambelts from us or any other local motor factor, I am highly highly skeptical about the value of paperwork.

 

I just buy on condition and assume fuck-all has been done to the car in the last millennia.  Can't be dissappointed then!

[sierraman]

I bought a £150 Focus Estate a while back, surprisingly it had all the old bills, despite being 17 years old the previous owners spunked £400 on a recon gearbox and £200 on recharging the air con. They were uni lecturers, type of people that whatever the bill was they just paid up. If it needed it that spent the money. That's the people you want to buy from.

[Hendry]

I bought a £150 Focus Estate a while back, surprisingly it had all the old bills, despite being 17 years old the previous owners spunked £400 on a recon gearbox and £200 on recharging the air con. They were uni lecturers, type of people that whatever the bill was they just paid up. If it needed it that spent the money. That's the people you want to buy from.

 

Exactly, and thats why I like service history, gives you a good indication how well its been looked after and also if its an utter lemming thats needed loads of non maintenance/wear and tear stuff done.

 

We arent talking receipts for a water pump from 6 years ago and a set of tyres when it was 3 years old type stuff here, Im talking about recent stuff to prove when the belts were last changed, what sort of owner it had by the type of parts, tyres and so on used, that kind of thing.

 

But as well as that I just love paperwork with cars, if its a car I like and not a cheap banger, its nice to know a bit of its life story too. 

[anonymous user]

It's nice to have, but not essential, I'm another who likes to have paperwork. It's only really the receipts for recent expenditure that might be relevant, but, having a load showing continuous expenditure/maintenance is often a sign of a caring owner.

I always keep folders with receipts for parts or work done which I pass on to a new owner when I sell

[mercrocker]

Doesn't always take a full service book to tell a well-looked after car from a neglected example so I don't necessarily dismiss a car on the lack of it.   On my Mercs what I like to see is evidence of early maintenance - they seem to be the better cars.   Understandably, fewer 3rd or 4th hand Merc owners bother but by then the car has had a good beginning.  Hopefully!  

 

I do like a shoebox full of old receipts on older chod, though.   Just for the interest, especially if its a local car.   I have taken old stuff back to small country garages that have appeared on old MoTs and sometimes found the bloke who did it in 1983 or whatever!     

 

Interestingly, the Cowley has its original order, invoice, receipt and guarantee as well as evidence of its one owner status but the bloke who bought in 1955 never even took it back for its first service, the voucher for which is still in the book! 

 

Conversely, the Minor has nothing to show its 20 years in the same family, I don't even think they took a photo of the poor thing.    I do feel a bit cheated about that..... 

 

Sometimes the scraps of paper can be worrying too - like the scrunched up bills I found in the T25 glovebox AFTER buying it which evidenced several visits to a local garage to try and cure an overheating problem.   On a wasser-boxer.   Great.   I changed the coolant and its been fine for 10 years (not with the same coolant!) so no need to worry - it would have put me right off if I had seen those first, though.  

 

My favourite stuff is the giffer collection - you don't get these much now.   Little hand-written notes on how much petrol was put in on Whit Monday in Great Missenden, or one of those Motorist's Diaries full of scribbled info on plug grades, points gaps and a Rhyl guest house phone number.       

 

I keep everything that I get for all my motors, I still have folders of stuff that went for scrap which is really too depressing to ever look at again.

[Bren]

Does sweets tissues and toys found under the back seat count?

[gordonbennet]

The only car i've ever had a full file for was a W124TE E320 (estate), right from the original invoice, £31k basic car £19k's worth of extras making it a cool £50k in 1994.

 

Fascinating reading, seeing how the servicing dealer simply took the piss every year without fail, though around year 5 the chap must have moved down to the west country, and if i thought the first dealer took the piss the second dealer showed them how to really do it, them glass palaces don't come cheap.

Don't think i saw a single service bill less than £500, and some were well over £3k, we'd bloody faint.

 

The current Landcruiser has a decent SH, book backed up by various receipts, that's stopped now cos i do me own servicing (couldn't afford to pay someone to overservice cars like i do), hopefully i'll never need to sell it till it's down at banger prices but i'm keeping a diary and as many receipts for parts when i remember.

Wonder what the next owner will think to receipts for 80 litres of Shell Helix Ultra and a further 6 x Wix filters, 20 litres Dexron 6, 20 litres 75/80 GL5 etc.

[rantingYoof]

I certainly appreciate that the older and cheaper a car gets the less important history is and buying on condition becomes a more sensible thing to do. And oddly the most reliable purchase I have ever made was a car with only a V5, MOT and nothing else. As it was pristine and, according to the dealer, 'one previous owner from brand new', my assumption was that a giffer had lovingly cared for it for 15 years or so, probably keeping everything, until trading it in for something else and simply not bothering to bring it all with them. Went through auction paper-work free and ended up with my bread-and-butter local dealer.

 

What astounded me when I was looking at things before getting the S60 was the indifference and even surprised/derisive reactions I got from dealers I visited. Understand I was looking at stuff between £2k and £3k which were all generally 7-9 years old; serious money for a car that in my book is relatively modern still.

 

I was told by one that I was being rather optimistic expecting a fully stamped book - that was on a '55 plated S60 D5 manual which, when I started it up, had a 'soot filter blocked' warning message come up. Another said that 'at this age it isn't really important; you can tell its been cared for' - this was an eight year old V50 2.0 petrol which had a ding on each corner and nicked leather front AND back.

 

After 15-20 years and umpteen owner changes I can see exactly how bills and receipts become redundant. But after less than a decade and an owner or two the service book should at least be present.

 

Having the previous three service receipts present for my car was very handy. When I got the brake judder when slowing down from 70mph the history told me that the rear discs were replaced rather cheaply the year before I bought it. Likely warped, then. It also told me that it had two new rear tyres (rather than just one, leading to uneven wear etc).

 

But yes, sometimes you can just look at a car and think 'that's been loved all its life', and that certainly is enough. And I wouldn't hesitate to buy a car from anyone within this parish even if it had not a single document present.

[Mally]

I chuck everything in the bin if I haven't lost it first.

[Hendry]

This is a pic of the history of one of my old cars that I hadnt accumulated much stuff for, most had even more than this, particularly my brand new 15 plate Corsa which had piles of warranty receipts in amongst the service invoices and handbook pack when I sold it. Original bookpack, 2 keys, service book and pile of receipts is something I look for in any car over about 2grand because its a lot of money. 

 

Obviously I wouldnt care if it was a 500quid car and I got 3/4 months out of it, id class that as doing well. But alas Ive never owned a car which has cost me less than £3500.

 

Picture002-1 by Greg Hendry, on Flickr

[Guest Hooli]

I like to have history of the car, it gives you a feel of how it was looked after.

[timolloyd]

History isn't a deal breaker for me, but I do question why some owners can't even manage to shove receipts in to the glove box.

 

I've run loads of cars which came to me with full history, which subsequently I serviced myself. It's no effort to keep the receipt for the oil and filter, if nothing else to remind me when it was last done!

 

Giffer log books are the Holy Grail, as Mercrocker says.

 

What does piss me off is cars advertised as FSH, when all they have is a print out from the MOT website, a couple of RAC breakdown reports and an invoice for one tyre from Kwik Fit.

[Squirrel2]

I too like to see a history and was pleased that my most recent Volvo, which had had one giffer owner from new, and had been serviced by the same independent from warranty-end till he chopped it. A big pile of receipts came with it. From the condition of it and how it drives, I don't think they 'took the piss' with servicing. From the receipts I have been able to check that timing belt has been changed and when it last had discs and pads.

 

My second Land Rover also had a service history handed to me when I bought it through a specialist dealer in 1998.. However as an ex-military 101FC 1-tonne that was always being chucked out of aircraft it makes interesting reading:- At least two engine changes during twenty years of army abuse.

 

Squirrel2

[Ghosty]

Not arsed either way, but it's nice to have. Mum's Cooper S didn't have any, but Mini had it all and gave us a printout. Rover had a stamp book that covered most of its life but not a lot else, the A4 had a fair bit. Old Man is pretty keen on it but I've no idea why he'd want it as he self-maintains.