An interesting observation on Dealership Service departments

As a car enthusiast and in the interest of learning more about cars in general, I am part of several car forums, including bimmerpost, VWvortex, Toyotanation, clublexus etc. and from going thru these forums as well as talking to people who own various different car makes, I've noticed something interesting: new car owners of certain makes and models trust their car dealerships service department and take their cars in regularly for maintenance and repair, while other owners of certain models hate dealerships or don't use them, and do all their own maintenance.

Talking to owners from Mercedes & BMW to Toyota and Lexus, most of these owners (I'm talking new cars), trust their dealerships maintenance departments and take their vehicles to them on a regular basis for routine maintenance and repairs. It seems that owners of Subaru, in particular WRX's and STI's as well as Civic owners, and in particular Civic Si owners don't like dealerships, and do their own preventative maintenance.

For Subaru owners of the cars mentioned, I don't have much information as to why except that it may be due to the heavy modifications they perform on their vehicles, but Civic owners both modified and non-modified seem to hate dealership maintenance departments. In fact many refer to them in this forum as "stealerships", and don't trust them from the oil they use to the techs that do the services. It's a bit interesting to try and figure out where this came about. There are a few threads that mentioned that someone went in for an oil change and went home with a blown engine, but this is probably a very rare occurrence.

My take on this is Honda's lack of offering free routine maintenance like a lot of other car makers offer. When I bought my Si in 2018, I was sort of puzzled they didn't offer any free routine maintenance (other than first free oil change), and was a bit annoyed when they tried to sell me routine maintenance at signing.

Anyway, although a bit off the normal topics, I thought this to be an interesting observation. That and I guess I was bored

I had outstanding experience at the local Toyota service department when I had my RAV4 and Camry recalls done. Sadly, the local Honda dealership service department is way behind Toyota in terms of shuttle cleanliness, service advisor professionalism, communication, service quality and timeliness. And I’m strictly talking about recall services for both brands.

I’m now eyeing that RAV4 Prime.

It may depend a lot on whether they're buying or leasing. I suspect a lot of Mercedes & BMW's are leased and it's safer for them not to take on the liability of servicing them themselves.

When I bought my 17 si, the dealership offered to do a routine free oil change for a year. I simply change the oil myself despite it being free. They only change the filter every other oil change which I recall you must change every time. Plus dealerships charge a lot of maintenance and parts. Double to triple opposed to a smaller mechanic shop. Why would I take it there? I can buy genuine oem parts online and put them on myself or get a mechanic to put it on if it involves lifting the whole car off the ground. I only go there if I have a warranty issue. Most people that can fix the car themselves do it themselves unless they don’t have time to or their time is more valuable than what dealers charge per hr

Jeffers said:

It may depend a lot on whether they're buying or leasing. I suspect a lot of Mercedes & BMW's are leased and it's safer for them not to take on the liability of servicing them themselves.

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I actually talked to a lot of BMW and Mercedes owners and leasers and they are loyal to their dealership maintenance departments. First off is the free oil changes, next is warranty work, which a lot of BMW use. Also They get free loaner cars, even for oil changes that take more than a few hours

I went to the "express" oil change lane at 5:15 pm one day and left at 9:45 pm !!! I asked for an oil change and tire rotation. They did NOT charge me and apologized. I got rear ended shortly after to the tune of $12,800 sold the car and had access to the car fax. I could see ...scan for receipt of auto. Scan for suitable for sale ... But guess what? No scan of my oil change!!! Those fing b stards did the lazy nothing that night while I waited for four hours for my "complimentary" oil change and passed it off to go home early. Dealership is / are will always be scum!!!!

longthaitran91 said:

When I bought my 17 si, the dealership offered to do a routine free oil change for a year. I simply change the oil myself despite it being free. They only change the filter every other oil change which I recall you must change every time. Plus dealerships charge a lot of maintenance and parts. Double to triple opposed to a smaller mechanic shop. Why would I take it there? I can buy genuine oem parts online and put them on myself or get a mechanic to put it on if it involves lifting the whole car off the ground. I only go there if I have a warranty issue. Most people that can fix the car themselves do it themselves unless they don’t have time to or their time is more valuable than what dealers charge per hr

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Other car companies like Toyota, Lexus, BMW etc give 2 years free maintenance, including filters, and I think that is why Honda owners do it themselves. Even though you get free oil, they are charging you for parts. The others I mentioned also include air filters, cabin filters etc

This comment is more related to my previous Civic experiences, since I haven't had to do maintenance on my new Si yet. I recall that both Civics had the MM system, meaning you only had to do oil changes every 7k or so, depending on what the system told you. But in both cases (cars bought at different dealerships), the local dealers insisted I should come in for oil changes every 5k miles, and their "scheduled maintenance" included services significantly marked up over what Honda's own maintenance schedule said was actually required. It bothered the hell out of me that Honda's own manual said X needed to be done, while their dealers said Y needed to be done, and for much more money, of course. IIRC correctly, I never needed warranty work on either Civic, so I never went to the dealer, ever.

With my new Si, I may try out my nearest dealership to work (Autosport in Bridgewater NJ) when MM tells me the first oil change is due, just to see whether they handle the routine maintenance fairly without ripping me off. They seem to have good online reviews, but we'll see.

Somewhat related, I've been toying with buying HondaCare (Hyannis seems to have the best prices, when I checked). I'm pretty certain that I'm going to keep this car for several years. But what gives me pause is less the value of the warranty itself ($800 to extend to 100K seems like a pretty good deal), than the concern that even if I have a warrant-able repair, Honda will try to deny a warranty claim, as I've seen on some threads in this forum. I don't know if that's really related to your original post or not, but I thought I'd mention it.

It's really more convenient to do the maintenance on both our cars. The Civic and CRV both use the same oil and filters. A fluid extractor makes it even easier.
Most maintenance is easier on Japanese compared to German brands.

I think this has a lot more to do with the type of people who buy the respective cars than anything about the service departments per se. Plus German cars are confusing. But, yeah, the typical Mercedes buyer isn't out in the driveway changing oil. No surprise there. And, no offense, but not many enthusiasts among the Toyota crowd. The Supra is a BMW, so that's going in for service, the 86, being a Subaru, probably some driveway mechanics there.

Generally speaking, low margin cars like the Civic and Corolla have a higher percentage of users that do their own maintenance. They are more value conscious, and are always looking for ways to keep operating costs as low as possible. The cars themselves are inherently more simple, consisting of technology that's been out for a few years, with aftermarket solutions available for support (such as low cost ECU programming tools for the rear brakes).

Also, generally speaking, those who spend more for their vehicles tend to have less free time. So even basic items such as oil changes get done through the dealer. Higher margin vehicles enable dealers to offer other perks not offered at third party shops. Things like free maintenance, Saturday socials, luxury waiting areas, etc. Also worth mentioning.... a much, much higher percentage of owners lease these cars vs. own them.

WOPSiWOT said:

I think this has a lot more to do with the type of people who buy the respective cars than anything about the service departments per se. Plus German cars are confusing. But, yeah, the typical Mercedes buyer isn't out in the driveway changing oil. No surprise there. And, no offense, but not many enthusiasts among the Toyota crowd. The Supra is a BMW, so that's going in for service, the 86, being a Subaru, probably some driveway mechanics there.

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I completely get BMW and Mercedes owners, they tend to be wealthier (at least that's what they project) and their cars are more complicated. But let me ask you this: if Honda gave two years of free maintenance, which included filters, tire rotation etc, would you bring your car in? Would the average Civic Si owner?

BTW, most "regular" Civic owners I know, meaning non Si owners service their Civics at the dealership or independent mechanic

I have a decent amount of trust in all the dealerships for my cars to be honest, mainly the mercedes dealer though. Reason is, i've been bringing my Mercedes there since we bought it in 2014 and have bought a maintenance plan with them. Is it more expensive? Sure. But the car is now nearing 100k miles and not a single issue with the car through its entire life so far. As far as the Honda goes, there's much less incentive to bring it to the dealer. Only reason I do is because its on the way to work for me so its conveinient. Another reason is my Honda is more simple than my other 2 german cars with a 2.0 4 cylinder thats tried and tested, it's pretty easy to maintain and not much can go wrong with it mechanically which is honestly one of my favorite things about this car. For my other 2, they are obviously more complicated and have more stuff that can go wrong, so bringing it to the dealer gives a piece of mind.

amirza786 said:

I completely get BMW and Mercedes owners, they tend to be wealthier (at least that's what they project) and their cars are more complicated. But let me ask you this: if Honda gave two years of free maintenance, which included filters, tire rotation etc, would you bring your car in? Would the average Civic Si owner?

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There is no such thing as free vehicle services. They just already accounted for the services in the price of the vehicle.

jakdotdot said:

There is no such thing as free vehicle services. They just already accounted for the services in the price of the vehicle.

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Doesn't matter. Every car I have bought I negotiated the price based on invoice, not MSRP. So if they baked into invoice, it's still an added service. So let me re-ask the question: Whatever price you paid for your Si, if Honda offered you on top of that two years of free maintenance, would you bring your car in? There is no judging here, I am just trying to satisfy my curiosity