With Britain in the grip of recession, many van manufacturers and dealers are worried that cash-strapped businesses will attempt to cut costs by skimping on vehicle maintenance. That’s why there is a flurry of initiatives to ensure that owners keep sending their light commercials back to the dealer’s workshop for servicing at the prescribed intervals.

Special Deals

Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles is the latest manufacturer to highlight the importance of regular maintenance. It’s launched a three-year fixed-cost servicing plan embracing every model in its range. Prices start at £295 and top out at £695. Mileages are banded, with 90,000 miles the maximum. Available to all customers with fleets of up to 25 vehicles who buy a Volkswagen light commercial between now and the end of March, the plans cover all regular service items and can be transferred to subsequent owners.

VW has launched this programme to help counteract the perception that having your van serviced by a franchised dealer is expensive and to stop customers drifting away to independent dealerships as their vehicles get older. So says head of aftersales, Stephen Bateson.

It should also help operators predict their light commercial operating costs between now and 2012 more accurately as well as ensuring that they actually have their vehicles maintained. “We’re expecting a 40 per cent or thereabouts take-up of these plans,” Bateson says.

Yet while initiatives like this have to be applauded, the customer must clearly understand what the programme does and does not cover before he signs up. If he does not, then the scope for disputes and disappointment is endless. “We’re aware of this risk, so dealer sales people are expected to go through the plan with the customer literally line-by-line,” says Bateson.

As it happens VW’s record on service retention is quite good. “About one-third of customers with vans that are four to six years old continue to have them maintained by our network,” he says.

Fixed Costs

VW is by no means the only manufacturer to offer fixed-cost servicing. Vauxhall has launched a highly-comprehensive service and maintenance scheme that includes a replacement clutch and exhaust plus replacement brake discs, brake pads, dampers and four tyres if required. With a three year/60,000 mile limit from the date of the vehicle’s first registration it costs £32.99 a month for Corsavans, Astravans and Combos and £39.99 a month for Vivaros and Movanos.

Something else that’s available through Vauxhall dealers is MoT test insurance. A £75 premium covers a van’s owner against up to £750 of repair work should it fail its MoT. There are a few exclusions, the key one being that the vehicle must be no more than eight years old and have covered no more than 80,000 miles.

Fixed-cost servicing plans underline the fact that light commercials have become a lot more reliable over the past 30 years and require a lot less looking after. If this were not the case, then manufacturers could not offer such programmes without making a thumping loss.

Aftersales Service

The aftersales service provided by dealers has improved over the past 30 years too, even though it could of course be argued that better product reliability and extended service intervals makes such support less essential than it was in the late 1970s.

With an eye to the needs of Transit owners in particular, Ford, for example, has 108 Backbone dealers plus 120 Transit Specialist Dealers (TSD). “So far as aftersales care is concerned the Backbone dealers are centres of excellence,” says Ford commercial vehicles director, Steve Kimber. “Their workshop technicians are trained to a very high standard and they’ve got the skills and the equipment to diagnose and solve difficult problems.”

No matter whether he’s dealing with a Backbone dealer or a TSD, a customer can expect an impressive level of support Kimber contends. “Their workshops tend to be open over 70 hours a week and some of them are in operation round-the-clock,” he says.

Others work late into the evening. “As a consequence the customer is often able to drop his vehicle off when he finishes work and pick it up fully-serviced the following morning,” he says.

Menu Pricing

Van owners can expect to enjoy the advantages of menu-priced servicing so that they will know exactly how much each service will cost, with no nasty surprises. While-you-wait servicing is available too, says Kimber — at least so far as reasonably straightforward jobs are concerned — and dealers are able to arrange Class IV and Class VII MoT tests.

Various manufacturers have offered free servicing schemes over the years in a bid to boost new vehicles sales; Ford among them. Surprisingly they haven’t always proved all that popular says Kimber. “We used to promote a three-year free servicing plan but we didn’t get an enormous take-up,” he recalls. “I suspect it’s partly because we have quite a few customers who have their own workshops and prefer to follow their own maintenance schedules.”

Ford van dealer workshops are being kept pretty busy nevertheless, says Kimber; an indication that some van owners at least aren’t skipping services. VW dealers are busy too says Bateson and he expects the number of workshop hours they sell to show a slight increase this year.

VW has 89 authorised repairers spread across the UK. “As a minimum their workshops have to be open from 8.00am to 6.00pm Monday to Friday, and they have to be open on Saturday mornings too,” Bateson says. “In addition some of them run late shifts and a handful of them stay open for 24 hours during the working week.”

Like many other dealers, VW van centres offer a collection and delivery service for vehicles that need to pay a visit to the workshop plus a courtesy vehicle if the customer’s own van is likely to be in the workshop for sometime. “We try to provide a courtesy van that’s similar to the one that’s being worked on although that can sometimes be difficult if the customer’s vehicle is fitted with special equipment,” Bateson says.

Fast-Fit

Another reason why manufacturers are eagerly promoting what their dealer workshops have to offer is the competition they face from independent, nationwide fast-fit chains such as Kwik-Fit, ATS and HiQ. These days the description “fast-fit” is something of a misnomer. While Kwik-Fit, for instance, will undoubtedly supply you with tyres, exhausts and batteries — traditional fast-fit fare — and fit them rapidly, some 400 of its 670 outlets can service vehicles too says Mike Wise, head of its fleet operation.

“Sites that offer servicing also carry out over 13,000 car and van MoTs a week,” he says. “The longest you’ll wait before a test is conducted — or for an appointment to have your van serviced — is 48 hours. Typically we charge 20 per cent less than a franchised dealer for a service,” he continues. “That at least is our benchmark figure; sometimes the cost is considerably lower than that.” Menu pricing and while-you-wait servicing are both available and Kwik-Fit outlets will also sort out brake and clutch conundrums.