I am just interested and have been thinking about it the last few days...when I got my Freelander it had its first service with the dealer (this is a while ago now) and one thing that stuck out on the invoice was what they charged for the oil, well that and they charged me 3hours labour to scan it for codes and tell me there were none...

The cost of the 5.7 litres of oil was AU$186.00 (roughly GBP106.00). Now I may be wrong, but that struck me as a ridiculous amount of money for the oil. Considering that is more than twice what I pay for Liqui Moly Synthetic or even the Repsol Synthetic I was using before that.

Just wondering what you have paid..out of curiosity..

Just looked at my last service bill (February) and they charged me £9.99 per litre X 5.9, a total of £47.14.

Last edited by EYorkshire on 21st Aug 2013 12:27 pm. Edited 2 times in total

I actually rang the dealer up and got a price on the LandRover oil for a Freelander which was about half the price they charged me on my service. I then spoke to the Service manager and asked him why the difference..his response was that "We don't use the Landrover Oil. We use a much better synthetic Castrol that is only available to dealers and workshops and that's why it is so expensive"

When I swapped over the the guy that services my car now, we were talking about oils for it and he mentioned that it was not cheap at $14.00 per litre..I showed him what LR charge and he nearly had a coronary and said I guess I wont mind paying his price.

Last edited by doka on 21st Aug 2013 12:21 pm. Edited 1 time in total

Last service at Team Valley Land Rover (justifiably famous in these parts) was £42.40 + VAT = £50.99 for oil.

Their explanation for their oil prices (lifted from their website) is as follows:

Quote:

Why are our oil prices so different?

Many Franchised Dealers are part of a Dealer Group. It is common practise for Dealer Groups to centrally agree oil prices through their Head Office. Part of this centralised agreement is that a ‘commission’ often equivalent to £3.00 per litre, is paid directly to head office by the oil companies, which increases the cost of oil to the dealer.

The increased cost price makes it impossible for the dealer to achieve the targeted percentage profit margin on oil without substantially increasing the retail price to the customer.

Team Valley Land Rover Service Centre has no such centralised agreement choosing a transparent retail price which reflects the true cost price for quality shell oils.

This is why oil retail price at Team Valley Service Centre can be less than half the price of many dealers retail oil prices, e.g. for a Freelander TD4, this could reduce your service bill by over £48.00

Well that's an open book reply for them to charge whatever they want

I would sooner use an oil to the correct 'Ford spec' at half the price and change my oil at half the recommended mileage.

I guess they must have something similar here..but I would think that considering they actually charge you for every little thing (i.e the rags they use) that they would have enough mark-ups on everything to make a quid overall and not have to charge like a wounded bull on the oils.

I should have mentioned that I was a Platinum customer as well..so everything was discounted.

eYorkshire - That's exactly what I do now...Originally used the Repsol Oil that was to spec, but have now changed to Liqui Moly.

For the cost of one Landrover Service every 10-12000km, I can service the little FL2 every 5000 (using Genuine filters) and actually still have cash in my pocket at the end of it.

EYorkshire wrote:

I would sooner use an oil to the correct 'Ford spec' at half the price and change my oil at half the recommended mileage.

pab wrote:

EYorkshire wrote:

I would sooner use an oil to the correct 'Ford spec' at half the price and change my oil at half the recommended mileage.

But if using the correct spec why change it at half the recommended mileage? I'm happy with the correct spec and the recommended mileage!

BTW, "£9.99 per litre X 5.9, a total of £47.14" - something not quite right there - 9.99 x 5.9 = £58.94?

FTR, the oil on my last invoice was itemised as 5.86l of Castrol EDGE Pro A5 5W-30, at £7.25/l.

The main reason I change it is that the landrover service schedule that is used in Australia is the same one used in the UK, where it is noticeable cooler and has different fuel qualities, most cars run a warmer over here simply because we have nice sunny weather quite often and we don't have the same quality of fuels

Also considering it is also the same cost as if landrover did one service, its no real loss for me and it is really a cheap form of insurance to make sure the engine is nice and happy long-term. Also if I miss a service by a couple of thousand km its no big deal.

Yes I could stretch it out with the quality of oils to 10000km, but for the couple of hours or so to change it when I do, and also having the ability to look under the car myself and for my mechanic to quickly go over everything to make sure there is nothing obvious wrong, its worth it.

BTW the Castrol Edge Pro is what the dealers here use.

doka wrote:

The main reason I change it is that the landrover service schedule that is used in Australia is the same one used in the UK

pab wrote:

doka wrote:

The main reason I change it is that the landrover service schedule that is used in Australia is the same one used in the UK

I can quite understand more frequent changes in Australia, but the recommended service interval here for the FL2 is 15,000 miles (24,000 km), where as you mention a LR service interval of 10 - 12,000 km above? So changing every 5,000 km is nearly 5 times the UK service interval, which seems a lot.

It sounds as though you actually have an extra intermediate service. In the UK there's only the A and B, at 24,000 km intervals, so the oil is expected to do 24,000 between changes.

pab wrote:

It sounds as though you actually have an extra intermediate service. In the UK there's only the A and B, at 24,000 km intervals, so the oil is expected to do 24,000 between changes.

We have :

12000 - A
24000 - B
36000 - A
48000 - B
60000 - B
72000 - A
etc

So its every 12000km or every 6 months which every comes first. Some markets also have an 'O' service which is basically just oils.

But you have got me thinking as the dealers had told me that the service intervals where the same as the UK..obviously not. And to be honest I never bothered to check..so I might just stretch out those service intervals a bit more to 10000km....I have to thank you for that..you have may have inadvertently saved me a few hundred $$

pab wrote:

BTW, "£9.99 per litre X 5.9, a total of £47.14" - something not quite right there - 9.99 x 5.9 = £58.94?

I just took the figures off the bill, perhaps I got discount
Even with VAT it doesn't quite add up

Click image to enlarge

EYorkshire wrote:

pab wrote:

BTW, "£9.99 per litre X 5.9, a total of £47.14" - something not quite right there - 9.99 x 5.9 = £58.94?

I just took the figures off the bill, perhaps I got discount

Don't worry they will probably make it up on the next one

Still a cheap bill though,same service here cost $980.00 or GBP563.00

FYI, the UK service sheet is here:
https://www.freel2.com/gallery/albums/user...0Sheet.PDF

This will be for MY09-ish, I think, but is still reasonably current. It does show 7,500 mile (12,000 km) oil changes for 'arduous conditions', but not normal UK use. I guess Oz is classed as arduous