I didn't enquire before buying my SZ5 in 2018 what the service costs were, but the Cheltenham garage I got it at turned out to be very expensive in that regard - back then one could download the rates for all services at each individual garage, a facility later withdrawn:

View attachment 106389

Even then it wasn't as expensive as Milton Keynes where I could have gone since my brother lived there then.

The next closest garage in Coleford turned out to be the cheapest of the six I checked:

View attachment 106390

However I do generally like to have my car serviced at the place I bought it, and so when I found out that Suzuki had a three-year service plan I bought that. That cost me £623.03 (but paid for monthly), more expensive than had I gone to Coleford (£433) but quite a bit cheaper than going to Cheltenham (£771). And everything was fine for the first three years - no additional costs - apart from a full-price £54.85 MoT in 2021!

Had I known about the service costs prior to buying the car I'd probably have gone to Coleford in the first place and bought it there.

When the three years was up I enquired about extending the service contract but it had changed - it seemingly could be arranged only with a designated dealer. Confusingly they sent through three quotes, one rather pointless one for three Minor services at £387, one for a Major, a Minor and an Interim service at £607 and one for the "manufacturer's schedule" at a massive £926.37!

They referred me to 3 Year Plus Servicing | Suzuki UK - which may have changed I suppose in the last year.

If you look there the Minor service is £129, the Interim is £199, and the major is £279.

So although 3 x Minor = 3 x 129 = £387, and Major + Minor + Interim = 129 + 199 + 279 = £607, going by the 2018 figures noted above the "manufacturer's schedule" would be £1,111 - so only a saving on the latter.

I didn't bother in the end since what I needed would be a Major + Minor + Major which I hadn't been offered, and in any case I probably wouldn't a year ago have wanted to go for a three year plan in any case - when I bought the Ignis it was going to be for a maximum of three years, but Covid put any replacement on hold last year.

I had though in 2021 bought a one-year warranty extension for a very reasonable £228.40 including AA - though I didn't have to use either part of it.

So 2022 comes around and I have to sort things out. The warranty extension was again quoted at £228.40 but when I logged on to renew I found that was for unlimited mileage and the option of limiting it to 15,000 miles brought the cost down to £209.36!

Firstly I sorted out where to have the service. I rang the Cheltenham garage and was quoted £426.82! Really !?!?! I said "That does include replacing the accessory belt as noted in the service requirements?". No they advised - that's coming up on their computer as replaced only at eight years not four. So why was what appears to have otherwise been an "ordinary" major service so expensive? I mentioned that Suzuki fixed price servicing was only being quoted at £279 on Suzuki's website. He said he'd go away and check up on things and ring me back the next day. The phone call came - "We can do it for £279 - but it definitely doesn't include the accessory belt which would be an extra £130 (or £160 - I didn't note it down)". I declined since unbeknownst to him I'd already the previous afternoon decided to motor over to Coleford and discuss what should be done at four years with them. They were advertising fixed price servicing: "Service: £179 Interim / £229 Full". They also confirmed that the accessory belt was only inspected, not replaced, at four years - replacement was at eight years. That's despite their service checklist on the reception desk showing four years. It appeared to be the same as this one I downloaded from somewhere a while ago:

View attachment 106392

Curiously they said the fixed prices at their website applied only to Citroens and that a four year service for an Ignis would be "£220ish depending how long it takes" - but when pressed "definitely not more than £229". So I booked it in with them on a while-I-wait basis to avoid having a courtesy car.

Both garages also I think confirmed that spark plugs were also on an eight year schedule not five years as noted in the service schedule.

Since the car's only on 13,000 miles and if the accessory belt did fail it wouldn't be a big job to sort I decided not to bother with that. If I have to claim on the warranty for anything I can still say my car has a full Suzuki main dealer service record.

I decided to get the MoT done independently to start with so anything that might require a warranty fix could be picked up. I found ProTyre had a £22.50 offer so had that done last Thursday and it passed, with two advisories. The front offside tyre was nearly down to the legal limit (at 13,000 miles!) and the front nearside tyre was nearly down to the legal limit.

I decided to have new tyres before the service and ProTyre again proved to be competitive - after they discovered very few tyres available in the right size. They suggested Falkens at £100 each since the Bridgestone Ecopias were "a lot more". The Falkens were available in Summer or All-season for the same price. I went away and did a little research on Friday morning, and decided to go with the All-Seasons (which I've never had on a car before so it would be an interesting experiment - and they have a much nicer tread pattern!) and found they were MUCH cheaper online - at ProTyre - than the £100 quoted!:

View attachment 106391

So only £88.46 each discounted making £353.84 - I ordered them online saving £46.16! They were fitted on Monday.

The service was carried out on Tuesday. It took longer than the 90-120 minutes suggested - about 140. But they only charged me £216.10 - only fractionally over half the price I was originally quoted at Cheltenham! [but see below] They noted two "advisories": the tyre sealant canister is dated 2021 and needs replacement, and the rear numberplate is loose - but it's been like it is since new. They forgot to stamp the service book but fortunately I checked on this before I left and got it stamped - but worryingly they didn't realise they also had to stamp the bodywork section too!

However on checking through the invoice while writing up this report, I find that brake fluid isn't listed on the consumables - so it looks like that's been omitted too - and I certainly wasn't expecting that! Brake fluid is always on a two-year replacement schedule and so why has it not been done at the two-year Major service? I've just sent them an email querying this. Admittedly their website doesn't list out what's done at each of their service types, but the Suzuki service page linked to above clearly notes:

MAJOR SERVICE - £279
Had some great adventures and clocked up some mileage? Our Major Service sounds like the choice for you. When you book in for this service, we’ll include an oil and filter change, replacement brake and clutch fluid, and we’ll also replace the air and pollen filters. To top it all off, we will also provide 12 months complimentary roadside assistance with Suzuki AA Lite.

Why are complications always thrown into the mix !?!?!

Then today I renewed the warranty as noted previously.

So MOT (£22.50) + Tyres (£352.82) + Major Service (£216.10) + Warranty (£209.36) = £800.78 !!! all in one week! At least insurance was in March - at £197.99 - so a yearly "standing charge" of just under £1k! Albeit of course the tyre cost will be spread over, say, three years - so more like £750pa.

I didn't enquire before buying my SZ5 in 2018 what the service costs were, but the Cheltenham garage I got it at turned out to be very expensive in that regard - back then one could download the rates for all services at each individual garage, a facility later withdrawn:

View attachment 106389

Even then it wasn't as expensive as Milton Keynes where I could have gone since my brother lived there then.

The next closest garage in Coleford turned out to be the cheapest of the six I checked:

View attachment 106390

However I do generally like to have my car serviced at the place I bought it, and so when I found out that Suzuki had a three-year service plan I bought that. That cost me £623.03 (but paid for monthly), more expensive than had I gone to Coleford (£433) but quite a bit cheaper than going to Cheltenham (£771). And everything was fine for the first three years - no additional costs - apart from a full-price £54.85 MoT in 2021!

Had I known about the service costs prior to buying the car I'd probably have gone to Coleford in the first place and bought it there.

When the three years was up I enquired about extending the service contract but it had changed - it seemingly could be arranged only with a designated dealer. Confusingly they sent through three quotes, one rather pointless one for three Minor services at £387, one for a Major, a Minor and an Interim service at £607 and one for the "manufacturer's schedule" at a massive £926.37!

They referred me to 3 Year Plus Servicing | Suzuki UK - which may have changed I suppose in the last year.

If you look there the Minor service is £129, the Interim is £199, and the major is £279.

So although 3 x Minor = 3 x 129 = £387, and Major + Minor + Interim = 129 + 199 + 279 = £607, going by the 2018 figures noted above the "manufacturer's schedule" would be £1,111 - so only a saving on the latter.

I didn't bother in the end since what I needed would be a Major + Minor + Major which I hadn't been offered, and in any case I probably wouldn't a year ago have wanted to go for a three year plan in any case - when I bought the Ignis it was going to be for a maximum of three years, but Covid put any replacement on hold last year.

I had though in 2021 bought a one-year warranty extension for a very reasonable £228.40 including AA - though I didn't have to use either part of it.

So 2022 comes around and I have to sort things out. The warranty extension was again quoted at £228.40 but when I logged on to renew I found that was for unlimited mileage and the option of limiting it to 15,000 miles brought the cost down to £209.36!

Firstly I sorted out where to have the service. I rang the Cheltenham garage and was quoted £426.82! Really !?!?! I said "That does include replacing the accessory belt as noted in the service requirements?". No they advised - that's coming up on their computer as replaced only at eight years not four. So why was what appears to have otherwise been an "ordinary" major service so expensive? I mentioned that Suzuki fixed price servicing was only being quoted at £279 on Suzuki's website. He said he'd go away and check up on things and ring me back the next day. The phone call came - "We can do it for £279 - but it definitely doesn't include the accessory belt which would be an extra £130 (or £160 - I didn't note it down)". I declined since unbeknownst to him I'd already the previous afternoon decided to motor over to Coleford and discuss what should be done at four years with them. They were advertising fixed price servicing: "Service: £179 Interim / £229 Full". They also confirmed that the accessory belt was only inspected, not replaced, at four years - replacement was at eight years. That's despite their service checklist on the reception desk showing four years. It appeared to be the same as this one I downloaded from somewhere a while ago:

View attachment 106392

Curiously they said the fixed prices at their website applied only to Citroens and that a four year service for an Ignis would be "£220ish depending how long it takes" - but when pressed "definitely not more than £229". So I booked it in with them on a while-I-wait basis to avoid having a courtesy car.

Both garages also I think confirmed that spark plugs were also on an eight year schedule not five years as noted in the service schedule.

Since the car's only on 13,000 miles and if the accessory belt did fail it wouldn't be a big job to sort I decided not to bother with that. If I have to claim on the warranty for anything I can still say my car has a full Suzuki main dealer service record.

I decided to get the MoT done independently to start with so anything that might require a warranty fix could be picked up. I found ProTyre had a £22.50 offer so had that done last Thursday and it passed, with two advisories. The front offside tyre was nearly down to the legal limit (at 13,000 miles!) and the front nearside tyre was nearly down to the legal limit.

I decided to have new tyres before the service and ProTyre again proved to be competitive - after they discovered very few tyres available in the right size. They suggested Falkens at £100 each since the Bridgestone Ecopias were "a lot more". The Falkens were available in Summer or All-season for the same price. I went away and did a little research on Friday morning, and decided to go with the All-Seasons (which I've never had on a car before so it would be an interesting experiment - and they have a much nicer tread pattern!) and found they were MUCH cheaper online - at ProTyre - than the £100 quoted!:

View attachment 106391

So only £88.46 each discounted making £353.84 - I ordered them online saving £46.16! They were fitted on Monday.

The service was carried out on Tuesday. It took longer than the 90-120 minutes suggested - about 140. But they only charged me £216.10 - only fractionally over half the price I was originally quoted at Cheltenham! [but see below] They noted two "advisories": the tyre sealant canister is dated 2021 and needs replacement, and the rear numberplate is loose - but it's been like it is since new. They forgot to stamp the service book but fortunately I checked on this before I left and got it stamped - but worryingly they didn't realise they also had to stamp the bodywork section too!

However on checking through the invoice while writing up this report, I find that brake fluid isn't listed on the consumables - so it looks like that's been omitted too - and I certainly wasn't expecting that! Brake fluid is always on a two-year replacement schedule and so why has it not been done at the two-year Major service? I've just sent them an email querying this. Admittedly their website doesn't list out what's done at each of their service types, but the Suzuki service page linked to above clearly notes:

MAJOR SERVICE - £279
Had some great adventures and clocked up some mileage? Our Major Service sounds like the choice for you. When you book in for this service, we’ll include an oil and filter change, replacement brake and clutch fluid, and we’ll also replace the air and pollen filters. To top it all off, we will also provide 12 months complimentary roadside assistance with Suzuki AA Lite.

Why are complications always thrown into the mix !?!?!

Then today I renewed the warranty as noted previously.

So MOT (£22.50) + Tyres (£352.82) + Major Service (£216.10) + Warranty (£209.36) = £800.78 !!! all in one week! At least insurance was in March - at £197.99 - so a yearly "standing charge" of just under £1k! Albeit of course the tyre cost will be spread over, say, three years - so more like £750pa.

Very Informative, thanks. Are the Falken All Season quieter than the Ecopias?

 

There is definitely a difference with the tyres, but whether that's down to the different tread pattern or the fact they're new is debatable. The noise rating for each is the same at 69dB.

Certainly small ridges across the road and a fraying road surface aren't as prominent as they were and deeper potholes seem somewhat "smoother".

I don't normally chuck the car round a lot so the handling hasn't seen any change - albeit going over a cobbled part of a roundabout at speed felt very unstable!

The crabbing when cold which had recently developed more prominently over the last winter (largely pulling out of my drive onto the road - my drive is gravel so it wasn't happening turning the car around there) isn't there now but that might be because the weather's warmer or because the tyres have more tread rather than simply a result of the more broken tread pattern, albeit I'd expect the latter to help in this respect since there's more "give" potentially without the continuous bands around.

 

UPDATE:

Well I've discovered the reason for the squirmyness.

When it got cold recently the tyre pressure warning came up and I found that all four tyres were several PSI underinflated! They were down to 31/28 from the required 36/32. I don't think this was just the cold weather - I think they must have been wrong when fitted and the coldness had just dropped them down a small notch triggering the warning.

To be brutally honest I never check the tyre pressures since previously they've always kept their pressure - and there's the tyre monitoring in case there's an issue. And I didn't check after fitment.

I've put them up to 36/34 and they're now much better in handling terms! And the ride has returned to "normal" too so the newly found smoothness has gone. But at least the crabbing is still absent.

 

I used the Falkens All Season tyres on my last car a vauxhall Mokka and found them really good for grip and on snow. When my tyres need replacing I will certainly use them again.

 

Re the new tyres
Did you only have two replaced and if so were they fitted to front or back?

 

Wot 352 notes for 2 tyres. Don't thinks so! Full set Id say.

 

... on checking through the invoice while writing up this report, I find that brake fluid isn't listed on the consumables - so it looks like that's been omitted too - and I certainly wasn't expecting that! Brake fluid is always on a two-year replacement schedule and so why has it not been done at the two-year Major service? I've just sent them an email querying this. Admittedly their website doesn't list out what's done at each of their service types, but the Suzuki service page linked to above clearly notes:

MAJOR SERVICE - £279
Had some great adventures and clocked up some mileage? Our Major Service sounds like the choice for you. When you book in for this service, we’ll include an oil and filter change, replacement brake and clutch fluid, and we’ll also replace the air and pollen filters. To top it all off, we will also provide 12 months complimentary roadside assistance with Suzuki AA Lite.

Why are complications always thrown into the mix !?!?!
...

The response has just arrived:

The brake fluid change itself is added as part of the labour in the service and not a separate part sorry for any confusion this has caused. Attached above is a copy of the service sheet for you with what the technician has carried out during the service. If you have any other questions don’t hesitate to get in contact.

 

The new tyres seem VERY assured on soaking wet roads, but that could of course be because they're new.

 

In the Australian manuals, the factory's original filled coolant is supposed to last 160,000 km.

 

160000Km / 8 years is standard for the original fill. Thereafter it's every 80000 Km / 4 years. This is for the Suzuki Super Blue coolant. Alternatives need to be replaced more frequently

 

I haven't fully tested the all-season Falkens much yet in snow - I fortunately live on a gritted road - though it did feel assured going over a snowed-over car park. But hopeless on sheet ice as I suspect most tyres would be.

However they're really good going through puddles - no tug on the steering.

 

Hi,
I’ve recently had the All season falken tyres fitted. They’ve been put to the test from the recent snow and ice and had no issues at all. I live in a very hilly area of North Yorkshire and they provide very good stability and grip on both inclines and declines.
Also very impressed with the Allgrip functionality.