People tend to put a good deal of time and thought into deciding what kind of car they want to buy and then in shopping for and negotiating the best price they can get for it. Unfortunately, this heightened consumer awareness tends to fade as soon as that new car is driven off the lot. Car service is the last thought in most new car buyers' minds - and the dealer is counting on that!

It has been understood now for many years that when it comes to desktop printers, the real profit cost-center for the manufacturer is not in selling the printer itself - but in supplying the generally expensive ink cartridges that are needed to keep the thing working. The money is not in the hardware - but in the necessary consumables.

 

There is a rather striking corollary when it comes to new cars. A person can buy a perfectly adequate, well engineered car for under $25,000. Many of them, however, if they are maintained per recommended maintenance by the dealer who sold it (or any other branded dealer) will actually cost many thousands of dollars a year in addition to the average road warrior. A dealer sells each new car only once and makes some profit on it. If they service that car for the next ten years, their real profits begin to add up.

 

Dealers tend to charge more than private, independent garages for both recommended maintenance and unexpected repair services and suggest to the customers that they know their cars best, provide the very best service performed by the most highly trained mechanics and that their higher charges for these services are well worth it. They certainly advertise more!

 

There is also a long-standing piece of popular misinformation that dealers do nothing to dispel that leaves buyers with the (generally inaccurate) idea that to keep a warranty active on a new car, required maintenance must be performed by an "Authorized Dealer." This is simply bunk and has been so for many years for most brands of automobile or truck.

 

In schools, the education a child receives is no better or worse than the teacher. The service your car receives is no better or worse than the skill of the technician doing the work. Big ads in the newspapers, roadside billboards and name brands embroidered with their names onto their work shirts do nothing to make an individual technician or mechanic a better technician or mechanic than the fellow at your local private garage.

 

Often, private garages will perform all required maintenance on cars to the precise factory specifications for costs that can be one-half to two-thirds of what the dealer will charge for doing exactly the same work. I have personally found this to be the case with both Hondas and Toyotas. Both brands are reliable, reasonably priced and well engineered - but the required maintenance can get the consumer in the neck/pocket book.

 

The point is to always investigate and consider your options. Talk to other owners of the same brand car and find out what their experiences have been - both with the dealer and with independent shops when it comes to maintenance or service of any kind.

 

No doubt there are communities in which certain cars are best cared for by the dealers who sell them, but to presume that this is always the case could well turn out to be a rather expensive and unnecessary error.

Read more about car buying and warranty here.