Service history... what does it mean to you...

To me personally it doesn't mean all that much.

I've seen too many cars with fake/foreign history which can't be checked at all.

I try to get a good look at the car and see if I get the correct "feel" with the car/owner.
I'm more inclined to believe someone who clearly takes good care of his/her cars and tells me he/she has done all the work personally then I am to believe some paperwork.

On top of that I do have the tendency to give a "new" car a very thorough service once it's in my possession.
Something my mechanics teacher once told me about never relying on someone else's work...

Zero on a retro..

You are doing the right thing - hang on to the receipts but what's stopping you from writing a detailed list up of everything that you did has part of the service - even take & record images if you can - true someone could have just drafted these up without doing the work but has already mentioned you can certainly obtain a feel for the vehicle and the previous owner - service history is a critical part of a vehicles history and unless I was purchasing a vehicle for complete restoration I would want every ounce of evidence that it had been looked after no matter of what format - even on one of my latest purchases which is this



1954 Jowett Jupiter - which requires a complete restoration - I wanted whatever paperwork & documentation that could be found for it - and ended up with a large A4 envelope of documents / invoices / photographs / tax discs / MOT's etc - all relating to the vehicles history - and once restored will be retained with the vehicle

You will not find one reputable classic car dealer or auction house not boasting about the service history / documents / restoration / image files that are held on file for the vehicle that they are marketing - it all adds to the provenance of the vehicle and increases the value / saleability of the vehicle


Zero service history on a car ? - ok if you are going banger racing with it - otherwise gather every bit of information that you can & document it

To me personally it doesn’t carry a lot of weight, would it stop me buying a car if it was ‘the one’, not really. I agree with what’s being said before, I think we can all almost always spot a good car and go with our gut instinct, it hasn’t let me down yet.

That said, I bought a landrover with a stamped book stating cambelt change etc and fell hook line and sinker for it thinking it was great, only when I got home with the car did I find out it was a completely fabricated service book, garages didn’t even exist, luckily I traced the previous owner and got some verbal history that way. From now on and with my wife’s latest car I pay more attention to receipts than stamps.

With the Rover I bought recently, I got service history with the car and I wasn’t expecting much, but when I got home I read through it and I think it carries a lot of weight, with me if nothing else. There’s handwritten letters from the last dealer to sell the car verifying the mileage and services it had received to back up the service book when someone had traced the history for themselves, I think it all adds to the history/story/life of the car.

I suppose to sum up, it’s nice if the service history is worth anything but a stamped book isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be, I certainly don’t get impressed by one anymore.

It depends.

On the M3, many came without service history. On 90s and 00s cars however, with a BMW or Mercedes anyway, you can call the dealer to confirm the service history is valid. It didn't bother me, but it was nice that mine came with it. The fact that mine has been better than a number of other cars when taken apart however seems to testify @grumpynorthener 's point.

The RS Turbo had service history which helped massively without trying to decipher things on it. like Milord has hinted.

That said, I've had less bodges on cars with service history than I have done otherwise, especially when there are other papers (receipts for parts etc.) to back the work up.

As an example I bought 2 MGBs years ago. The one with service history back to the 70s looked more bodged on the surface (it wanted wings and arches), but it was a much more solid car throughout.

Photos and build threads can also help IMHO. But ultimately, it is your gut which sorts things out. I've seen some cars with service history, where I've still not been convinced that I'm doing the right thing.

I myself tend to service cars myself and keep/document the receipts, down to keeping a spreadsheet and keeping track of when I did the work, from a mileage and time perspective.

My Merc 250D for example came with zero history. I had to semi-guess at times what was done, partly down to the way things looked etc. My current E320 has history and TBH it's a much better car in almost every way.

My Clio had service history and I noticed how it kept on going through TREs on the one side they had been changed. I went to an OE TRE and going off the MOT history it's not failed since. Same on the Alfa 147 .

But I've also bought some cars with no SH (as in just a V5 and MOT!), and they've been OK. The overall condition and seller of the car count for more, and yes, sellers can be hard to interpret.

Ok, i'm a lot more decided now, thanks for the input folks, I think it'll be a case of buying genuine parts, and i'll document the work, both in written and photograph form. The cost of labour for work I can do myself is something i'd rather not pay if it isn't needed.
I think i'll also do as you have said ChasR and document it on a spreadsheet along with mileage, date.

It was always a niggle at the back of my mind, but with what you all said, i'm pretty happy to do it now

I love a good history. On certain old cars, your "regular" service history becomes less important and if there is no history, it's not the be all and end all, but It's nice to have some kind of history file, even if it's just a journal of some kind that a previous owner has kept to add a story to the car and show a good level of care and enthusiasm.


The history file I got with my Ferrari far surpasses anything I have ever seen before.


A 35L Container full of box files and other bits and pieces

 

The usual invoices for all work carried out by various companies, plus invoices for parts bought and notes regarding work carried out by the previous owner









Then it goes a little more extreme. Every time a new part has been fitted or any work carried out, details of all parts changed are highlighted in both diagram and list form from the corresponding page of the Ferrari Parts Catalogue







Other bits of history from the PO who put this file together include the original advert in Exchange & Mart from which he bought the car in 1993, along with other adverts from various publications for other cars he viewed at the time and various magazine and newspaper articles testing the car whilst he was researching to buy



Then when he stripped the car for restoration, every single component was photographed upon removal and listed into which of the 19 specially-built wooden crates it was packed

 

Followed by photos of the restoration at various stages until I bought it



Not sure why the uploader has flipped some of the photos!

I've got a CL500, but a W215 and some of the many bills for servicing and repairs from both MB main dealers and well-known MB specialist are eye-watering!

The PO was a top London Surgeon so guess he wasn't shy at spending out on it, but the reason I ended up with the car was he had spent out almost £12k in under a year basically completely overhauling the ABC Suspension system, new pump, all new struts, the lot, but it still failed after all that. I got it and found one dodgy connection in the pipework. Free fix apart from a fair amount of time tracing it, plus all new fluid and filter. 

Proper servicing for those cars is not cheap though with 16 spark plugs! But it's never had anything other than genuine MB parts fitted to it though since new in 2002. So I think the history certainly should add value to that one, plus serve as a reminder than running such a complex old beast on a shoestring ain't really gonna happen!