I had my MY99 turbo serviced yesterday at an official Subaru dealer and found that both side lights had been replaced at a cost of 2 x £1.00 plus £13.00 labour. On checking my previous invoice from Sept 2001 I saw that the side lights were replaced then also.

Is is reasonable to expect both bulbs to blow within 4 months, in fact I'm sure they were OK more recently as I checked them myself.

I won't name the dealer but it is quite local to my work in Maidenhead so if you do use the same one have a look at your invoices and see if you have had the same problem.

Gary

I have found that these bulbs last me exactly one year on both my MY97 & MY99. It may be your dealer replaced the rear number plate bulbs the second time as they are exactly the same bulbs and last a similar length of time (and could be called sidelight bulbs).
It will do no harm to query it and see what they say.
Beastie

Changing the bulbs in the sidelights is a 10 minute job. I would query why they charged you 13 quid labour.

Even I can change the sidelight bulbs.

My car's going in tonight for service tomorrow. Made sure all bulbs are working just in case.

Mike

The sidelights don't seem to last too long on my MY99 Sport (and they are a sod to change as you have to give it some welly to get the lens out) but I'm sure 13 quid can't be justified - what did they do - drive to Halfords to get them?

Ran a Terzo for three years, never changed a bulb of any sort.

The Mondeo tends to eat them, and when it went for a service the garage noticed rear light had failed and replaced it. Checked the invoice fearing the worst, not listed so I asked the Service Manager. "No charge for that Sir, they're only a few pence and a couple of minutes to fit"

Good old Subaru customer service, I'd move to another dealer.

I've had a sidelight bulb fail 3 times on my (almost) 4 year old car. Twice it was replaced at service (they charged me 62p +VAT for the bulbs) I think, but as it's only a 2 minute job to swap them out, I wasn't charged anything for the labour.

Recently I swapped one out myself, and it only took me 5 minutes, and that was working out how to do it, as well as swapping the bulb. £13.00 to swap out two seems a bit steep to me.

My other half had a new brake light (along with a charge for fitting) listed on the things they did to her Clio to get it through the MOT.

Ended in a heated argument with the garage as I followed her into the garage when she dropped the car off, and the lights were working when she stopped. Adding insult to injury, it looked like they broke part of the lamp cluster fixing and the boot was never quite so dry since the MOT.

In the end they refunded her the fitting charge but maintained that the bulb was blown and still charged her for the bulb itself. Wonder what the odds of the bulb blowing during an MOT test are :rolleyes:

Friend of mine was suspicious about this at his Nissan dealer. He was told on one service his orange bulbs were losing the orange paint covering so they were replaced. Next service came, so he replaced them himself about two days before the service.

Yep, you guessed it, he was told the paint was coming off the bulbs and needed replacing.

So, 10-15 quid a time, per car, per service....nice little earner really (allegedly ;))

Used to run a 305 and took that for a service at a dealer and they told me the front fog lights didn't work and the injectors needed adjusting... a couple of other things too... they assume you are stupid.. so I said I didn't want them to go ahead with the work and collected the car.
I had used the foglight in the fog the night before so knew they worked and how exactly do you adjust an injector...
When I got home I removed the front fog light lenses to find that the wires were pinched in the mounting shorting them out..
moved the wire and added electrical tape and hey they both worked....
They must con people out of thousands...

Hey - i can pay £12.99 for magnatex oil at local Macro store - dealer charges me £29+vat!!!

I also got charged £28 to fit a pair of sports grills!!

They rip you off. Im off to TSL for servicing once the warrenty runs out!

Jza

Peugot dealers are shocking, I remember from my 205 gti days, I became sure they set up things to fail shortly after servicing so you'd go back to get it done. also caught them charging for a new pair of rear brake cables once, when the ones on it were less than 6 months old - and put on by themselves! ".....oh ..oh sorry sir we'll replace them under warranty of the part then..."

Thanks for the info. The labour time was 0.2 hours so £13.00 would be 12 minutes at £65 per hour.

All the other aspects of the service were excellent, the car was returned as if it had been valeted inside and out. I just have the nagging doubt that parts were fitted that weren't necessary unless it was the number plate lights.

G.