pin64

Afternoon All,

I find myself with a tough choice; I have a fairly immaculate S2000 with coming up to 100'000 miles on the clock. It's due a decent service, that I'm more than capable of carrying out myself. However, the car has full main dealer service history and in the interest of keeping that history and presumably resale value in tact I'm considering paying the main dealer to do the work for me purely to get that stamp in the log book.

What would you do? I'm torn! I could save myself a good few hundred quid by doing the work myself!

Apologies if this has come up before, I've attempted to search but not found anything.

Thanks in advance.

windhund116

What servicing items do you plan to do? Is it like the 168km service in the owner's manual? Think most are pretty easy. Keep receipts of items bought.


http://techinfo.honda.com/rjanisis/p...202O00152A.pdf

Chuck S

There's so little involved a dealer service is unnecessary but may be worth it to preserve the maintenance history. If you think there's value there I doubt there's any real extra value. My "logbook" has no stamps, nor has any car I've owned the past 30 years. Not that they're not dealer serviced when necessary, just that the dealers don't bother.

Hardest jobs seem to be the valve clearance inspection and spark plugs. The plugs come out anyway to check the valves and you just insert new ones. Buy the correct part number and they're factory gapped. But these jobs are routinely performed by folks here. Valve check/adjustment takes a couple $10 tools and an hour of so with a cold engine. Tedious but not difficult. Need a set of gaskets. And rather than "check" the accessory drive belt just replace it, it's not that expensive.

-- Chuck

slalom44

Opinions vary, but my advice is to do the work yourself. You're not going to get more for your car because you had an extra dealer service. If you have all of the receipts, that's plenty of evidence that the work was done. And if you plan to eventually trade your car in, the dealers would never give those receipts to the next owner anyway.

Personally, I'd rather buy a car from a do-it-yourselfer anyway. My car has never had dealer maintenance yet has been very well cared for. If I wanted to sell my car right now it is unlikely that I'd get any less for it because it didn't get dealer service. Used car values have much more to do with vehicle age, mileage, condition and repairs.

Slowcrash_101

Slalom, your car has over 300k miles, if that's not enough proof that diy maintenance is good enough I don't know what is.

pin64

Thanks all, I think that's what I wanted to hear! I'll do the work myself.

Yes it's going to be the usual bits (oil & filter, air filter, spark plugs etc.) plus transmission and diff fluid, valve clearance check / adjustment, aux belt and possibly fuel filter. The dealer has quoted ~£560, which could be worse, but I'll definitely save myself a few bob by doing it myself, plus have the satisfaction of knowing that it's been done properly.

I'm yet to come across a garage that I trust implicitly to do this stuff properly, I've carried out work myself on all of my previous cars, but then I've never owned a car with full dealer history before!

I definitely agree with all of the points raised and this has really helped me make up my mind, thank you all.

On a separate note, I visited the states for the first time recently (Ohio and NY), kept my eyes peeled for an S2K but didn't see a single one! That said most of the time was spent in the city or cruising on long, straight interstate roads, I guess all you guys are out enjoying the twisties! I must go back some time and find some good driving roads.

Chuck S

Heck I live in Ohio and never see another S2000 on the road. I drive Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. Maybe one (1) last June and a couple the summer before. There are some here (I think) but I never see them either.

Took me months to find one for sale last year too.

-- Chuck

hvAlfaWant_S2000

Really? I live in the smallest state in the US, and I see a few s2ks weekly! Maybe its the concentration of people that makes that possible!

Chuck S

Yep. Really.

Saw one last February or March dodging pot holes that made my Expedition shudder. Last S2000 I saw was last June on I271 on the east side of Cleveland. OK, that's 2 not "not any." None since. (I don't count David's "Sheldon" as we work on our cars together sometimes).

I think I saw two last year besides Sheldon. One at a gas station about a week after mine came home in July and the other was the member here I sold the black wheels to in Columbus a month later. See Miatas by the dozen and the little BMWs by the half-dozen monthly.

-- Chuck

hirev

Nice to read others do their own work. i have worked on this car all it's life with me, 12 years this month, I have a 2004 . I took it to the dealer twice for a warranty job and a valve adjustment, since then I have done it all myself, every oil change, fluids, filters , plugs, valves, brakes, etc. This will probably be the last car I can do all this on, the newer ones are all not home maintenance friendly, my bmw is 17,000 mile oil changes! This is such a great car for me, and reliable.