Just out of curiosity, I decided to go through my maintenance file to see how much I paid for my 15k service, back in 2011. The grand total was $94.95 to do everything that the mfr specified (essentially oil & filter change, tire rotation, and a bunch of “inspections”), and while my Outback was in the shop they also did a gratis headlight adjustment and they performed a recall repair (replacing the lower cover for the wiper motor).
They also wanted to replace the cabin air filter, but I had already done that, thereby saving myself… probably… about $60.
If I remember my college economics, this is called Supply Side Economics. Your company can make x-number of “widgets” per day (or performing tune-ups, oil changes, selling tires, etc… the product is not important…). You start selling your widgets for x-dollars and you sell out (same as getting too many customers coming in for oil changes or to buy your tires…). You raise your price to x+1-dollars and they still sell out, but not quite as quickly…
Now it starts to become a delicate balancing act, you want to raise your price again, but how much. You know that when the price goes up, fewer customers want your widgets.
You try raising it now to x+2-dollars and you now have ten widgets left over that did not sell. You now have to lower your price, but to what level. When the customers who paid the X+2-dollars finds out they over paid, they may not be so quick to order again. The customers who did not buy the X+2-dollar widgets because the price was too high, may have found a new source for their widget needs and may never look to you for widgets again…
Yeah, it’s a real predicament, how much is too much? Perhaps that is why the folks who study economics and understand the basic fundament premises for targeting the variables that bolster an business’s ability to supply the most goods for the highest price get paid so well by the big corporations to maximize their profits.
I expect a lot of car owners would gladly pay a reasonable amount more than dealership prices if they consistently got excellent results from their mechanics. If I had found a mechanic to service my VW Rabbit 40 years ago, and I always got excellent results, I’d have paid more than the dealership charged without a second thought. Even better, I would have never taken the night school class on auto repair, my fingernails would be clean, and you folks wouldn’t have to be bothered by my bizarre posts … lol .
Our mechanic for the VW Rabbit back in the 80’s had jumped ship from the local dealer to start his own shop, if something was covered by warranty he’d tell us and the dealer would do that repair but he became our sole mechanic because of how much better he treated us compared to the dealer.
Current shop since '93 charges about the same as the dealer for oil changes but is much closer to home and you’re greeted by name the second they pick up the phone and they know which car you’re calling about Found them while shopping for a 30K service for the '90 Mazda Protoge and they were close to the quote form a smaller dealer while saving a 60mi round trip. Every chance they got they’d ask what else they could be doing compared to the dealer and they’ve added those things.
My folks would rather pay a little more for that level of service since the cost of replacing normal wear items and servicing the car has totaled for the year about what some previous cars would cost every month or two.
