Competing With FREE Maintenance on New Cars Purchases

[Joe Marconi]

We have seen an increase recently in new car sales. A lot of those cars that my customers were hanging onto are long past the useful life. The problem is that there are many new car dealers giving 2 years or more of free maintenance. How can we compete with this? Do we need to be concerned?

 

Think of all the other challenges we have these days. I know many of you might say that we lose a certain amount of customers for the first few years anyway when a customer buys a new car. But, I think now it’s different.

 

The dealerships need the service work now more than ever. Plus the dealer is beginning to understand the sales cycle. If they do a great job in the service department, it greatly increases their odds of selling those customers new cars in the future.

 

I would like to hear from other shop owners on what they think about free maintenance and how we can compete with this.

[Gary A]

I think that they are not our ideal customer at that point. The new cars don't need much anyway, so I don't think we are missing much for those first couple of years. We can also advise people that economically it is better to buy a used car maybe 1-3 years old rather than brand new. Some dealers are doing a better job on the service end of things but there are still a lot of customers that like to come to us no matter what. I guess you would have to know how they are really being charged for the maintenance becuse nothing is free and point that out to them.

We have seen an increase recently in new car sales. A lot of those cars that my customers were hanging onto are long past the useful life. The problem is that there are many new car dealers giving 2 years or more of free maintenance. How can we compete with this? Do we need to be concerned?

 

Think of all the other challenges we have these days. I know many of you might say that we lose a certain amount of customers for the first few years anyway when a customer buys a new car. But, I think now it’s different.

 

The dealerships need the service work now more than ever. Plus the dealer is beginning to understand the sales cycle. If they do a great job in the service department, it greatly increases their odds of selling those customers new cars in the future.

 

I would like to hear from other shop owners on what they think about free maintenance and how we can compete with this.

[Jeff]

I have won over several customers by showing them in black and white wher they were paying for the "freebies". The local Toyota and Kia dealers offer tires and batteries for life. BUT the fine print stated you have to follow their recommended maint program to qualify. Injector fluhes every 15k, engine decoarboninizing at 15k, transmission sevices at 15k, the list goes on and on. And of course the services are all at an inflated "dealer" price. I havent seen the datails for the new 2 year "peace of mind" programs but I am sure there are stipulations.