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-   -   Your car or bike | How many days of downtime for maintenance every year? (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/technical-stuff/292114-your-car-bike-how-many-days-downtime-maintenance-every-year.html)

This awesome new thread by BHPian Themomomonsterr ignited the thread idea.

How many days off-the-road does your car spend each year for repairs & maintenance?

My list:

530d = 20 to 30 days of downtime every year. High-end German luxury cars are really not for the faint-hearted, required a LOT of TLC and endure a high amount of costs / downtime. I don't think these cars can be your primary ride - you need another car in the house. Even though my 12-year 530d has been as reliable as an Innova Crysta, it spends about 15-30 days off the road every year. Scheduled maintenance takes longer than with normal cars, as does the spare parts waiting period, and back-and-forth discussions on repair quotations. Beautiful machine. Recently shot picture. But takes a lot of effort & money to keep in top shape (average of 2 lakhs per year). One fast drive on an empty highway early in the morning though...and it all seems worth it. What an engine, what a gearbox!


Thar = 1 single day in 2024 for its scheduled service (2 days combined in 2024 & 2025 for its annual services). An extremely dependable, robust machine:


Skoda Superb = Between 2 to 3 days (averaged) per year. Still in warranty period, things are simpler. I expect a week or two of downtime once she is 6+ years old (DSG, Skoda Electronics...)

I voted for 1-7 days per year.

My BMW 320d has been extremely reliable all these years (touch wood) and has not needed more than a 1-day visit for regular service (oil change approximately every 10,000km , brake pads change somewhere about every 25,000km etc). In fact, most of these services are only half-day affairs. I take my car there at 9AM. Wait there and do my work from the customer lounge in the service center, and by around 1PM the car is ready and I drive back. That has been my routine for last 3-4 years for maintenance of the 320d.

So on average, BMW 320d needs 3 service days per year (half-day or at max 1 day per visit, and about 3 visits per year) in the service center.

My Mahindra Thar has also been very reliable so far. Again, apart from regular service visits (oil change etc) it has not needed anything else, and each of those service visits have been half-day affairs only.

So cumulatively, in 2 full years, the Thar has did about 4 visits to service centers, half-days each!

My previous car was Maruti SX4 (sold now), and even that was as reliable as it could get. Apart from 1-day visits for regular oil changes every 10,000km, it required nothing else.

Feeling really honoured right now. :coldsweat
Since I can't actually participate in the poll being a newbie, here goes...

Kia Seltos 1.4 TGDi MT - 1-3 days every 10k kms
BMW 530d - averaged 2-3 months a year. consistently.
VW Ameo - 1-2 days every 10k kms
Hyundai i20 N-Line MT - 1-2 days every 8k kms.
INT650 - 1 week every time it requires a service.

Voted 1-7 days.

Our 2013 Swift has been extremely reliable even after a decade. Despite being 2 generations old now parts are fairly available and in stock. Have stuck to authorised service centre here in Mumbai.
Downtime 1-2 days.

Can say the same for our two motorcycles as well.

Firstly the RE Standard 350 Bullet, I have always had a great experience having serviced my Bullet exclusively from RE authorised centre be it bi annually major services or minor issues. Have always got the bike back from service on the same day itself. Downtime half to 1 day.

Secondly the Honda Hness 350, still under warranty, the authorised service centre experience has been a mix bag! Not expected from the Japanese giant esp when BigWing centres are supposed to cater to the premium clientele. Downtime 1-2 days.

Baleno – Requires servicing once every 10,000 km. It’s an extremely reliable car. Having covered over 90,000 km, everything still works perfectly. Being a Maruti, even if something like suspension work is needed, parts are always in stock. Along with general maintenance, the workshop usually returns the car the same day. Usage has increased slightly in recent years, so the car visits the workshop 1-2 times a year.

2013 i20 – Spent around 45 days in the workshop in 2024. Last year was particularly bad, with multiple failures occurring one after another. The general lack of parts for an older model also caused delays. Before that, the car was fairly reliable, requiring only 1-2 workshop visits per year.

I won't bore you with how much time I spent on my classic cars doing all kinds of routine maintenance and just about all repairs myself.

When it comes to the two daily runners, our 2015 Ford Fiesta and 2010 Mini one it is anywhere between 2-3 hours to maybe 6-8 hours, per year, depending on what needs doing.

There have been big jobs on the Mini you would need to consider of normal maintenance when a car gets older. E.g. Replacing the thermostat housing which is a big job! Check my fiddling with cars thread.

On average here in the Netherlands most cars will spend only one day a year at the dealer or independent garage. All necessary parts tend to be stocked and everything that isn't will be delivered early afternoon. With most modern cars going easily up to 10-15 K, between regular services most people will only visit their dealer or independent garage once a year. If you clock a lot of miles, you are also likely to have a diesel car that can do 20-30k between regular services.

We have so called annual APK test, basically an MOT. On our daily cars that will take an hour max. Usually done as part of the annual service if you use a dealer or an independent garage.

I would say, rule of Thumbs, the actual number of hours required to service a well maintained modern car is around 3-6 hours per year max. Cars that go over 100K kilometers are more likely to need additional time. Think distribution belts/chains suspension work, exhaust work and so on.

Most folks here will take their car to a specialist tyre fitter. Dealers and independent garages are notoriously expensive and lack a good choice of tires. A good the fitter will swap and balance a pair of tires in 45-60 minutes max. You make an appointment, have a coffee, make a few calls and your car will be ready.

Jeroen

Voted for 1–7 days.

If there had been an option to select 1–2 days, I would have chosen that. So far, my car has only required a one-day visit to the authorized service center each year for regular maintenance (touch wood). I always make it a point to visit the service center early in the morning so that it can be serviced and returned on the same day (I usually get it back by the afternoon).

As for my bike, I used to take it to the authorised service centre, but the experience was not great. I always found myself waiting for long periods, even if I had booked an appointment in advance, for a service adviser to take it in. The same story would repeat itself in the evening during delivery. I always found the service centre very crowded, with too many bikes and scooters queued up for servicing. But, of course, I did get my bike back on the same day.

This year, I took it to a local workshop, and the experience was good. Once again, the bike was returned on the same day with all the requested issues attended to.

Voted for In excess of the above
Mine has been little sad story with my City. In my 3 years ownership of the City, it had to visit 3 times for major issues. 2 times bumper damage by bike guys and 1 time Rat bite to the engine wiring.
All of them took more than 20 days to sort it out. The rat bite took more than 30 days as the wiring had to be ordered from Honda.


While the Alto, for the past 10 years it is just 1 day.

Voted for 1-7 days.

My Tigor diesel in the last 7 years and 1 lakh Km of usage never had more than 2-4 days of down time in a year.
Generally the annual service coupled with some minor parts change, like timing belts, or any such thing takes max 2 days. Haven't encountered any unexpected down time yet.

My Alto K10 in the last 8 years has been super reliable, there is a reason why it sold like crazy, that's because it is virtually maintenance free! 1 day of downtime annually and the regular service costs mere 4000 rupees, that's even lesser than my Classic 350.

My 2012 manufactured Royal Enfield Classic 350 too has a maximum 3-4 days down time in a year. The general annual service takes a day, but if at all there is a different issue like electrical fault, starting issue etc. then it takes a couple of days to resolve as the diagnostic takes a bit of time.

For all my vehicles the maintenance is done at reputed FNG in my area.

I voted 1-7 days. I feel that all modern cars for the first owner should not have down time for more than a couple of days for routine periodic mandatory services. The modern engines can work continuously for a very long time (we have many examples of cars driven for million miles with no major repairs to engine). The best examples are airport cabs and I cannot stop admiring the reading of 300K to 500K kms for scratch less white cars. I think these cars run 24 hrs continuously by fleet owners with different drivers in shifts. Man requires rest and not the machine.The issues start with electronics beyond 5 years.

I am the first owner of all my cars like Mercedes Kompressor, Scorpio VLX, Crysta Z and Jimny alpha. These never gave me any issues beyond routine maintenance.

The downtime increases with multiple owners / age and not necessarily miles. A car beyond 5 years old would start giving issues mainly with electronics and hard to get spares for the older generation and outdated electronics. A car is a machine which needs to be used constantly to have trouble free engine.

I am not sure if I can generalise and say that a car requiring more than 2 weeks per year down time is a lemon if that is the correct word. The lemon can be any car for that matter. It is just a matter of bad luck for the person who happens to buy it. If the lemon laws are good, the dealer/OEM should be proactive and replace the car before the brand image is damaged.

Downtime- less than 7 days.

City 5th gen petrol automatic, that I bought in late 2021.

Took four days for a headlight that needed changing, thanks to the lunatics driving the state transport buses in MH.

Annual servicing is the only time I've ever visited the service center otherwise, and that has always taken not more than half a day since I'm the earliest there when they open up and get the work done and I'm out by 2 pm or so. It's been an amazing ownership experience so far.

Most cars don't need downtime of more than a day or two a year, especially the popular ones with good reliability. The same goes for the case of two-wheelers as well. In our family none of our cars, scooters or bikes has had more than one day or in the rarest cases two days of downtime a year, be it cars like the new Kia Seltos, our old Honda City, Nexon EV, MG Comet EV, Ola S1 Pro Gen 2, TVS iQube and the like.

All of them have been reliable thus far and even though many have had issues with Ola, my experience has been good apart from the first visit, after which the service experience has drastically improved with the opening of new locations across India.

I own a Brezza and a Grand Vitara. I'm intentionally not counting the accidents and the ensuing downtime, I'm only looking at the service related downtime.

Each car has been in the service centre for general service and maintenance for a max of 4 days every year. Which is why most people buy Marutis, I guess.

Edit: After voting and posting, I recalled that my Brezza did have part of the engine replaced under warranty just 15 days into ownership. And that was more than 3 weeks of downtime. Should have voted for the last option. :coldsweat

Voted 1-7 days. My Corolla will turn 19 years old later this year. Every year, apart from servicing, it hardly needs any work. Last year, it had 3 days of downtime - 1 for servicing, 1 for polishing and 1 for A/C gas filling. The car is used at least 300 days of the year.

For my cars:

2018 Tiago XZA: 3 days total (1 day for routine servicing + 2 days for AMT oil change that I'd asked him to do during servicing but he avoided, and then I went it later to push for it to be done). In the past five years, this has been typically just 1 day total.

2013 i20: 3 days total (1 day for routine servicing + 2 days for clutch overhaul: it wasn't required but we chose to do it proactively before parents' 3k road trip)

2022 Crysta: 1 day (routine service)