Should I service my car?

Here at Maitland Motors, we understand that sometimes you have to priorities where and when you spend your money. Often, the family vehicle is near the bottom of those priorities; a birthday, new school shoes or an unexpected bill often needs paying first. However, keeping your vehicle maintained is a proactive way to prevent unexpected garage bills and can help the funds you do spend go further.


Following your manufacturer’s service schedule is an easy and effective way to get the most from your vehicle. (You’ll find this in your vehicle’s manual or your dash might pop up with a reminder.)

Why should I service my car?
Regular servicing ensures that essential parts (brakes, suspension, etc) are running efficiently and to your needs and requirements. The more miles you drive, the more you should expect parts to deteriorate due to wear and tear. It can also give our technicians the chance to spot and nip potential problems in the bud before they develop into an expensive, lengthy repair that otherwise could have been avoided. Regular servicing also helps the vehicle maintain its value price if you decide to resale.


My car passed its MOT, does it still need a service?
Your MOT is a legal requirement set out by the DVLA that checks the roadworthiness of a vehicle. To pass, it only needs to meet the minimum road safety and environmental standards. Some MOT checks will overlap with a service, however, not everything is checked such as testing the condition of your oil and filters. The main difference is your MOT ensures your car is safe at the time of testing, services are a maintenance measure to help prolong its lifespan, improve efficiency and lower economic costs.


Meaning if you want to save money in the long run, we would always recommend servicing your vehicle. Like we say here in the workshop, prevention is always better than cure. Especially, when it comes to cars!!
To help spread the cost of your service we also offer Payment Assist where you can spread the cost of your bill over 4 monthly payments, fee and interest-free. (Please ask for more details.)


To book a service here at Maitland Motors drop us an email or call our office. We always use OE quality parts on all services such as Millers Oil and Mann Filters. Your vehicle is also given a Free Health Check as standard, breaking down our findings & costs involved.

When should you visit Maitland Motors?

If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a million times here at Maitland Motors – “Prevention is always better than cure, especially when it comes to cars”. A few ways to ensure your car is running effectively, legally and more importantly safely is by keeping up to date with your car’s service schedule, getting any knocks, bangs or squeaks checked and being MOT ready.

Yearly Service. Your service schedule can be found in your own car’s manual where it will detail exactly when your make & model should be looked at, this is often age/ mileage dependant. Some times your car will require a full service, but the next visit it may just need an oil and filter change. By following this, it will help keep your car running to manufacture’s spec, prolong the many different parts of your car (meaning less repairs, less often), and nip any potential unknown issues in the bud. We’ve also put together a basic yearly schedule when you ideally should see us.

Your Basic Car Maintenance Schedule
Basic Yearly Maintenance from Maitland Motors

Get Noises Checked as soon as they start. Most of our common repairs that come from noises being checked are drop-links, track rod ends and ball joints. Nipping them in the bud stops the repair developing into far more serious issues, which will be more expensive to repair. Squeals could also mean your brakes are needing checked. If your car is making new and unusual noises, it may be a good chance to book in for a FREE Vehicle Health Check at the same time and get your car as a whole looked over.

Get MOT ready. (Especially if your car was given a Lockdown extension as it could be 18 months since your car last saw a technician.) Booking in prior to your MOT means we can spot and repair any potential MOT fails. Saving you time, money and being without your car for any retests.

To help take some of the stress away from car care and maintenance, we also offer a (limited) Pick Up and Collect Service from your home or place of work and Payment Assist where you can split your bill fee and interest free for any unexpected repairs (very handy at this time of year). Ask for more details when booking.

If you have any questions or would like to book in for a Service, Health Check or Pre-MOT then please email us or call the office. Ross and the team are always happy to help.

5 reasons to book your car into Maitland Motors

At Maitland Motors, we are commit to proving wrong the poor reputation that the auto repair industry has. Below are reasons why you can trust that your car is in good hands with Ross and our team.

  1. Highly rated and recommended. We have many fantastic customer reviews where you can see for yourself what our customers think of us. Being members of the Good Garage Scheme, we have been awarded feedback of the week twice and are highly rated on both Facebook and Google. Most people come to us after being recommended by friends or family, which to us, is the highest form of good feedback when someone outside the garage gives us their recommendation.
  2. Try before you buy. We offer a, no obligation, Free Vehicle Health Check where you can try before you buy. This is when we get your car up on a ramp and visually inspect it for any obvious maintenance, repairs or issues. This gives you the chance to come meet us, see where the garage is and ask any questions you might have. When it comes to the bill, all our estimates and invoices come broken down so you know exactly what you are paying for. If your car is booked in with us and any additional work is needed or the job is going to cost more than previously advised we will seek out your authority before going ahead, giving you a full breakdown of what’s involved, the benefits and costs. We aim to be open and honest when it comes to pricing and charging our work.
  3. Experience and knowledge. With over 21 years of experience in the trade, Ross is very knowledgeable when it comes to looking after your car. His CV includes working with the big dealers to independent garages giving him in-depth and various experience of the industry. He also qualified at the top of his class winning apprentice of the year with Fife College and is still very aware that educating himself is key to improving our customer service. In an industry that is rapidly changing Ross is still going on training courses to help keep up with the advancing technologies, repair procedures and innovating tools. Alongside Ross, the Maitland Motors team is very hardworking and committed to repairing your car to a high standard with our very talented technician Dale and our up and coming apprentice, Saun. Maitland Motors itself is fast approaching 5 years in business growing from a 1 ramp unit to a much bigger workshop with 3 members of staff in that time. We have lots of exciting plans for the future to help offer our customers an even better, productive, and modern service.
  4. We only fit OE quality parts. We feel very strongly about using good OE quality parts. When it comes to cars prevention is better than cure and by using quality parts over cheaper ones, you’ll find you’re replacing the same parts less often. They often come with better guarantees and are more reliable. We are proud to be a Pagid/IMI Professionally Accredited Brake Specialist (who offer a 25 months/ 25,000 mile guarantee on their pads and discs) and are also proud to use brands such as Mann, Shell and Forte.
  5. We are here to help you. Which is why we offer a limited pick up and drop off service from your home or place of work. Spread the cost of your bill, fee and interest free with payment plans from Payment Assist. We also offer a Maitland Motors courtesy car which you can rent from a few hours to a few days to help you go about your daily life while your car is in with us. Call the office for more details.

If you have any questions about booking in and how we can help look after your car, DM us, leave a comment below or call Christine in the office.

Payment Assist with Maitland Motors

Here at Maitland Motors we understand that keeping your car safe and roadworthy can be expensive. Sometimes big jobs come at the worst times (is there ever a good time?) which is why we are proud to offer Payment Assist. Payment Assist is a brilliant way to spread the cost of your garage bill over 3 monthly instalments fee and interest free, with 25% of the invoice being paid at the time of work. You can find out more on their website here.

Spread the cost of your Maitland Motors bill with Payment Assist.

If you’d like to pay using Payment Assist all you have to do is let us know when booking your car in or when work, after diagnosis and inspection, is agreed on. This way we can get the process started for work commencing on your car; any delays in this can result in us having your car longer than needed. Once we input your details at our end (name, address, email), you’ll then be sent an agreement form via email and a text reminder, detailing the costs involved and T&C’s etc, which you need to accept to finalise set up of the process. This email is only valid for 24 hours and if for what ever reason it lapse, the process needs to start from the beginning again. Until this email has been accepted by you, we can not release the car back to you regardless of work being finished or not, so keep an eye on your emails/phone. This helps with the arrangement running as smoothly as possible, which we know is important to our customers. We really do appreciate your corporation with this.

To pay via payment assist, just let us know before work is carried out and accept your agreement form via email.

Once the form has been accepted you’ll pay 25% of the invoice at this point via card payment. The rest of the invoice will be paid automatically over the next 3 months using the same card details, so you don’t need to do anything further.

If you have any questions or would like to know more about Payment Assist with Maitland Motors, please don’t hesitate to get in touch or leave a comment below.