Man that's outrageous. My Porsche's oil service is $200 less than that. Also not sure what an "ethanol kit" is.
DIY Oil Service

 

Oil change $280 at the dealer on my 2020 Defender at 10K miles. That should be around the price you pay...

What is an ethanol kit. Sounds like bunk. Can you scan and post the invoice?

 

Here's that section of the invoice - the "ethanol kit" was explained to me as some sort of "cleaner" (?) and honestly I was having such a hard time processing the $500 for the oil change I didn't really listen to that well enough to honestly judge it.

I talked to my sales contact that I've know for 15+ years and he admitted it was expensive, but on par with other dealers. he advised that if I do future changes to make sure I "keep receipts" so that if there are any warranty issues later - Land Rover will want documentation that I performed the work. (I wonder if that raises questions about doing the work myself?)

 

You can absolutely do the work yourself. Just keep your receipts with dates.

 

$500 for an oil change is nuts. You're invoice shoes a 3 part BG kit, which will include an oil flush chemical, oil additive for after the change, and fuel system additive that goes in the tank. They shouldn't be doing this without asking if your want that, in my opinion. They also should've told you what you would be paying and had you agree to that price prior to doing the work. My shop charges about that for a full 20k service including brake flush and cabin filters on top of oil change (Mercedes dealer). Those kits work great, but unless you've got like 30k+ miles it's pretty unnecessary. The big issue here is you not knowing and presumably not agreeing to that price before the work was done. Did that service include anything other than what's shown on your attached invoice?

As for warranty and service receipts; dealers are all connected to a network with the manufacturer and all work done at a dealer will be saved on that network. I'm the US, shops are required to keep repair invoice records for years after the work is done. But the digital records should survive within the dealer network unless there's a massive server issue with the manufacturer.

Doing your own services in the US cannot void your warranty assuming you do the services with the correct parts and following the correct procedure. It's usually pretty obvious to experienced techs when things aren't done properly or done with subpar parts. The kicker here is that you need to be able to prove you did those services, so keep parts receipts and a spreadsheet or notebook indicating the date and mileage at which you did the services. Keep your records thorough and consistent, they don't have to be perfect, but you should aim for that to avoid some ******* from trying to void a warranty claim. Records are rarely the issue when it comes to covering warranty on a DIY serviced vehicle, 99% of the time it's because people doing their own work use the wrong parts or just generally suck at working on cars and screw things up.

 

Regarding the ethanol treatment. I bet they poured this stuff in via the fuel door - , or it's perhaps plain old BG44K fuel system cleaner.

-- Figure buik dealer cost of ~$20, maybe $8 for the BG44K. Price to you is $80 with labor, so $60 = profit. Takes techs 1 min to pour in gas tank, and they're already changing the oil so they can do it (no separate drive in / drive out as a tech's time is valuable).
-- Main dealer does conservatively 10-15 oil changes a day (?), that's 200-300 oil changes a month, if they add on this expense to all, this represents an additional $12,000 to $18,000 in profit (not revenue).
-- So yes, the service manager decided to do this, your car does not need it, perhaps it foots the bill for another mid value employee + benefits for the month. etc. And maybe that's better service so it's worth it in the long run, who knows.
-- I'm fairly certain JLR (the manufacturer...) does not advocate this being poured into your car. If so, there would be a SSB/communication saying it's allowed / recommended for use or it would be on the routine maintenance schedule. Can you imagine if fuel pumps started dying & JLR would start denying claims as a result? Porsche actively says do not use any non approved additives in the tank in the owners manual of the 992.

I don't love a business attempting to increase margin with unnecessary services.

I worked as an errand boy (or court jester depending on the day) in the Parts Dept of a somewhat struggling Jaguar/Saab dealership in Birmingham AL (Jim Burke Saab) in high school and college during summers. It was 25 years ago but the service managers were bonused on profitability and incentivized to add incremental services that owners would not care about or understand. I was in a training meeting where the service writers were instructed to use the word "component" instead of "part" in selling thru repairs to customers, research indicated that more sophisticated language in discussing vehicle repairs allowed a higher markup on parts and customer tolerance for higher pricing.

(end rant lol)

 

Agreed, no way they should be doing this without mentioning it upfront. They can certainly recommend it and you may have even agreed, but not asking is a big no-no in my book. I'd look elsewhere in the future.

 

Just had oil changed on my V8, I believe it was $250 - $300. Definitely nowhere close to $500.

 

I paid $185 for an oil change at my LR dealer.

 

Dealer's used to be able to do an oil change every 3k miles. Now it's 20k. So, I think they are making up for it in the price of the oil change!