All Cars, All the Time

Free Maintenance Heads Out the Window

Mercedes, Jaguar, and now Audi have ditched free maintenance plans. There are various reasons given, but it all comes down to the bottom line. The spin I really liked was from a Jaguar representative when he said that Jaguar owners made enough to pay whatever it costs to maintain the car. In his next breath he mentioned the fact that dealers have a new profit center in that they can sell packaged maintenance plans (which are always pitched as saving you money) at the time of sale. So, if you can pay "whatever it costs" then why would you bother buying plan that "saves you money?" It may be true that the well heeled can afford maintenance without a second thought; it seems to me that there are many benefits to having free maintenance. Firstly, it gets customers in the habit of coming back to the dealer for service. When there is no free maintenance with the car, barring a defect or recall, I never take back the car to the dealer. However, when free maintenance is included and I get to know the service staff I'm more inclined to have the dealer do the repairs later on (although, let's be honest...I rarely keep cars that long). Another benefit is that cars with free maintenance tend to get maintained. If you are buying a car and the owner has all the receipts showing dealer service, that certainly improves its resale value. When you add it up, however, most services required by cars under 50k are pretty minimal anymore. Certainly some AWD cars can have involved 30k services, most cars don't see serious action until after 50k. Not that it's stopped dealers from charging "major service" prices for 30k services, but when you look at the checklist it's pretty minimal. For example my "free" 30k service on my Saab had oil, oil filter, and air filter. I always felt like the Saab got second class treatment at the dealer once they found at they couldn't sell me a $40 tire rotation or $25 wiper blades. Audi has publicly stated that they want to fatten the bottom lines of their dealers. Cutting free maintenance will certainly help them do this. Would the lack of free service stop me from buying an Audi A6? No. Would the Audi dealer's shop get my business for service? That would also be a no.