Thoughts on servicing in Germany

DellaDelio · Wednesday at 7:29 PM

This may be a really naive question.

Our Cali Beach is one year old in March. As we will be in Germany for a fortnight in May, I wondered whether it’s feasible to get the Cali inspected/oil change at a German dealer. We have the 5+ offer of free servicing. Is this valid only at UK VW dealers?

WelshGas · Wednesday at 8:13 PM

DellaDelio said:
This may be a really naive question.

Our Cali Beach is one year old in March. As we will be in Germany for a fortnight in May, I wondered whether it’s feasible to get the Cali inspected/oil change at a German dealer. We have the 5+ offer of free servicing. Is this valid only at UK VW dealers?

I believe this might be a U.K. only Option. You could certainly get it serviced, your VW Service record would be updated but you would have to pay yourself.
I know Warranty Repairs can be undertaken abroad and should be free in years 1 & 2 under the VW warranty, but year 3 is a U.K. warranty only and you have to pay initially and claim back from VW U.K.

RedWhiteMonkey · Thursday at 6:40 AM

I'm a Brit (now also a German) who has lived in Germany for nearly 12 years, here's my thoughts:

- I am not 100% sure (you'd have to read the small print) but it is very unlikely that an offer of free servicing, or anything, from VW UK will be applicable to VW Germany.
- Servicing work, and similar, carried out by German garages requires you to give them the vehicle registration documents. You obviously won't have German registration documents and I suspect UK ones would make it too complicated for them to want to bother.
- Do you actually have a garage lined up in Germany? As you can't just turn up on any day you will need a booking.
- Whilst a lot of Germans speak pretty good English you are likely to have a bit of a communication barrier if you do actually find a garage that would take you.
- I assume this is a holiday, I can think of many better ways of spending your time in Germany other than getting your van serviced.

It all seems like too much hassle to me.