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The Choice is Yours
Last week, I wrote about ensuring that your vehicle is serviced according to the manufacturer?s requirements so that you don?t invalidate the warranty on some components. I also advised readers that they have the freedom to choose a dealership or an independent garage for service work. The choice is yours.
As with any profession, there are competent and incompetent independent garages and new-car dealers. Find a dealer or garage that you trust and stick with that choice. Ask your friends where they get quality service on their vehicles. Ideally, if you can service your vehicle where you purchased it, loyalties and relationships have a chance to develop.
Many consumers will hear from friends and family: ?Take your vehicle to the dealer for warranty work only. Never go to the dealer for regular maintenance work because it?s too expensive. Instead, take it to a local garage where the pricing is two or three times cheaper than at the dealership.?
This opinion is a myth, and perpetuating it does a disservice to customers. Some of these types of stories have been around for decades ? over time, the cars have changed, the consumer has changed and any dealers that haven?t changed are no longer in business.
Despite what most customers believe, dealers don?t make huge profits on the sales of new vehicles. Dealership service departments are generally more profitable than new car departments, and therefore, most dealers have focused more closely on improving the quality of service provided to customers.
Dealers know that the first point of defection by customers to the independents, is for the routine ?oil changes?. If oil changes at the dealership are overpriced or inconvenient, then customers will assume that all maintenance or repair items are overpriced. Consequently, if dealers are not competitive in price and convenience, they lose your business.
This is one reason why so many dealers have expanded into the fast lube business. There is very little profit in oil changes, per se, but providing that service keeps us connected to our customers.
The most profitable repairs for service centres occur as vehicles age ? when warranties have expired. Tires, brakes, timing belts, exhaust, alignments, etc., are some of the items that wear out over time. Dealers don?t want to lose customers as warranties expire; in effect, they would be losing the customer at the worst possible time in the ownership cycle.
Progressive dealers research the pricing at the independent garages so that they can be competitive. The days of assuming that dealer repair estimates will be higher than independent garages are long gone.
In fact, many independent garages purchase repair parts from dealerships, and then turn around and retail those parts to their customers.
I frequently see cases where customers will proudly show me their invoices for, say, a clutch repair at their local garage. In many cases, our final dealer prices were cheaper, and interestingly enough, the independent garages had marked up the genuine factory parts beyond the full retail price for those parts.
Apart from being competitive in price, there are other advantages in choosing a new-car dealer for repairs and maintenance work. Whatever type of vehicle you drive - a sports coupe, a minivan or an SUV - dealerships are familiar with your model of vehicle.
We are the specialists for your vehicle - we are not general practitioners. This doesn?t mean that all general practitioners are bad and that all specialists are great. But, odds are that the specialists will be the best.
If a certain model is prone to wheel bearing failure, a dealer may check for wheel bearing noise during a minor service check. The technician can pinpoint a potential problem, and make the necessary repairs or adjustments prior to the vehicle going out of warranty. In that case, the cost of the repair is covered by the manufacturer, and not by you.
Don?t just take my word for it: If you need a repair, contact independents and dealers for estimates. Next week, I will coach you on how to properly compare these service estimates. Do not assume that any facility will have the best pricing. Make sure that you have your year, make, model and serial number handy (check your ownership) and comparison shop!
If I were not confident about dealership service pricing, would I risk suggesting that you shop around for the best price?
Ken Shaw Jr. is President of the Toronto Automobile Dealers Association and is a new-car dealer in Toronto. E-mail comments to president@tada.ca
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