Well, I had my first service on my car here in the UK. they do things a bit different here than in the US or Canada for that matter. Here in the UK they have a different system than what I have seen anywhere else, you actually have to have what they call an MOT done on your car each year, basically it is a test to make sure your car is road worthy. if not you have to correct any issues that they find before you can get your MOT certificate. I have not had to do that part of it yet luckily. That adventure comes in January of next year. The other interesting thing is they need to have the MOT Certificate to get your Road Tax paid here in the UK, which is basically similar to your registration in the US or Canada. you have to pay the road tax is based on the size of your engine and year of your vehicle. for Newer vehicles they have gone the route of the paying related to your emissions. Given the fact I didn’t pay all that much for my car, I don’t really want to spend loads on it to keep it running.

So now on to the actual service. I had it serviced here in town by the local dealer, they had a special for “Legacy Service” which is basically for any car more than 3 years old. which my car qualifies, it is 12 years old. So basically what they call a service here is an oil change, inspection, road test, and then they valet your car afterward. So after all that the damage to my wallet was about 200 GBP(approx $400 USD). which is quite significant if you consider that they do the same in the US for about $50 maybe $100. With that in mind though the difference being here the manufacturer only recommends a service every 12 months…not every 3 as in the US and Canada. After the inspection though they found a few things “of concern” as they say. nothing major but it could be in a few months. the total of their major findings to get repaired came up to almost 1400 GBP. Now comes the point where I have to start looking at the cost/Benefit of getting things fixed on this car or getting rid of it and getting a new one.