For the first 3-4 years of D3 and RRS production LR main dealers had a virtual monopoly on servicing the cars as those of us who bought the early cars were wary of taking them to small, often unimpressive LR specialist garages.
In the same period quite a few well trained (not necessarily competent!) technicians/mechanics have left the main dealers and taken their expertise with them to specialist service outlets where they prefer to work.
The local service outlet that I use employs 4 former main dealer technicians and apart from being well trained they all have something that franchised service outlets seem not to recognise - they LOVE Land Rovers, they eat, sleep and breath Land Rovers. My Defender hasn't been near a main dealer service bay for 6 years, I think it gets better TLC at the nonfranchised specialist than the local main dealer would give a 14 year old car because the small garage doesn't have the time pressures on them to complete a job in a set time that a franchised service agent has. 2020 Pangea Green 1st Edition D240 New Defender 110 is here and loving it
2018 Melting Silver Mini Countryman PHEV - soon to be replaced
2015MY Corris Grey SDv6 HSE Dynamic, the best car I have ever owned, totally reliable only a cou0le of rattles in 3 years, now no longer in my care
Also in my garage is a 1996 TDi300 Defender 90 County HT made into a fake CSW

Ouch!!!!

I have just booked my RRS in for the 48month service with the local main stealer here in Stockholm - it only needs doing because of time not mileage (only done 5k miles since last service, but has got a very slight oil leak somewhere) - fixed price 625GBP!!!

This will DEF be the last time in to LR - the car is new to me, so I want to make sure it's all OK - it's also a stipulation of the separate after market warranty I got with the car (surely that can't be legal, but cost of fighting might outweigh cost of doing it anyway).

Starting my hunt for alternatives - might even be worth planning a road trip to UK next time, seeing some of the deals you guys are getting in good ol blighty

Tornado there is a well known (in the UK!) Land Rover forum that has many many overseas members, all over the world. There isn't a lot of info for RRS/D3/F2 but if you post a query about non franchised specialist service outlets in Sweden I'm sure somebody will be able to tell you who to try over there.
Try looking over on www.landrovernet.com 2020 Pangea Green 1st Edition D240 New Defender 110 is here and loving it
2018 Melting Silver Mini Countryman PHEV - soon to be replaced
2015MY Corris Grey SDv6 HSE Dynamic, the best car I have ever owned, totally reliable only a cou0le of rattles in 3 years, now no longer in my care
Also in my garage is a 1996 TDi300 Defender 90 County HT made into a fake CSW

Tim in Scotland wrote:

I use a non franchise Land Rover specialist like RRUK and my experiences have been the same - all genuine parts
purchased either from BritPart or direct from the local LR dealer, same bought I bought the Defender from supplies the parts to the specialist, the difference in labour/VAT between franchised and non-franchised is the main difference in the price - £100 an hour+ per hour from a franchised dealer versus £33ph for the speicalist. The specialist has all the workshop kit that the main dealer has, his labourforce were trained at the main-dealers and by Land Rover and are all 'approved' LR.

Same here, I found a local (to where I work in Leicester) specialist who also travels to service & maintain my old P38, did an amazing job of looking after it and sorted a few things that others hadn't diagnosed correctly. He's just a one man band but will only use LR parts (albeit obtained at much less than LR prices) and has all the same diagnostic gear. Best of it is, only £20 per hour labour. He'll be looking after my G4  Ex-G4 Challenge RRS HSE, BV55 YZE. Subtle shade of orange ! Now registered YZE481 G4RRS in Melbourne.

Cheers Tim, will give it a shot.

Interesting reading, and lets be honest we all look for the FLRSH or full main dealer history when we look to buy a car, however what I tend to do is just get the basics done at the main dealer - no tyres brake pads, etc, without a full costing first ! then just get these done with my local and trusted mechanic. You then have the best of both worlds, nice dealer rapport, with a full main dealer stamped book. You can also insist on just an oil service, (stamp in the book) if you have a major one due, and then just get the rest done with your local man, as sometimes these major services are all about 2-3 hours just checking things over for wear, and we all have confidence that every thing is done as per schedule - dont we

However I recently sold my Ferrari 550, (crap in the snow !) and believe me potential purchasers crawl over the paperwork and service history in the minutest detail. You have to have cambelts done every 2 years at a cost of about 1k, even if the car has covered 0 miles however this car had been maintained during my 4 years of ownership by a very reputable (but non franchised) Ferrari dealer; people were more than confident with the history that was provided, some actually preferred this history to various different stamps from main dealers. So in some instances a good independent service history can work.

But I still like my stamps in the book .......

Had my 60k service done a few months ago and I ended up at the dealers with mine. It had a full LR history and I wanted to maintain that. Also the price I was quoted it would have been daft not to. A well known independent quoted just over £300 and I got the dealers down to £350. For the price difference I thought it was a no brainer. Incidently another dealer I rung quoted me £600 so if that was the typical dealer price I would not have gone ahead. The overall experience was a very pleasant one and the professionalism of the staff was most impressive.

Another question on keeping cost down, has anybody actually purchased the parts requried for service (oil, filtersect) and asked LR to quote for service based on you supplying the bits and did it make a difference

And on the independant issue, my relative is a mechanic at a major BMW dealer and he has told me that it has not been unknown at very busy times to sub contact service work to the local BMW independant specialist