I think you have no idea what you're talking about. There's an independent repair shop just down the street from me that has as much business as they can handle (they smartly located themselves right outside a major employer's campus, so it's a convenient location for all the people who work there). Everyone knows dealerships are expensive. With the average age of new cars being over 11 years now (according to the article), most people are not going to be taking their cars to dealerships when there are cheaper places to go.
And how many of those people would take their car there after they switch jobs? I'm betting very few. Also things like tires and oil changes are different than major repairs.
No, 'Grishnakh was right. You have no idea what you're talking about. If a particular repair is under warranty, then sure, one gets it fixed at the dealer. Otherwise, especially for a "major" repair, why pay 40% more for a mechanic: with decades less experience, who doesn't have an interest in the business, who won't speak to the customer, and who will be replaced by somebody else when the customer needs another repair next year?
This is a government installation. People don't switch jobs here very much.
Tires and oil changes are the two biggest service jobs on cars these days, since everything else is so reliable. But on a 10-year-old car, it's entirely possible to do more substantial repairs thanks to the OBD-II service tools that are available. You can get one of these scanners for $100 now (or less for a crappier one), look up any codes thrown by the ECU, which will tell you exactly which sensor has gone bad. As long as the manufacturer isn't intentionally making it so you need a dealership tool to do stuff, these cars can be quite a bit easier to work on that older ones since they tell you what's wrong.
I'm well aware of that, I've personally changed my own oil, replaced the starter on an ex's car, replaced my mass airflow sensor, and have my own OBD-II scanner (crappy one).
I'm not sure why this thread turned into multiple attempts to convince me that independent mechanics are a good value that can do the same or better work than a dealer. I never claimed they couldn't, I stated that I don't think most people have a trusted mechanic that isn't the dealer. So far I've gotten a lot of down votes, anecdotes, but no data. I very well could be wrong, I was stating my opinion based on what I've seen and experienced.
Look at YourMechanic, it's filling a need in the market to link independent mechanics to car owners. It is using a verified user trust model to rate them. If the vast majority of people had trusted mechanics they wouldn't be gaining much traction in the market.
>I'm not sure why this thread turned into multiple attempts to convince me that independent mechanics are a good value that can do the same or better work than a dealer. I never claimed they couldn't
Yeah, I'm not sure how that happened.
>I very well could be wrong, I was stating my opinion based on what I've seen and experienced.
I'm not sure there's any easy way of proving it one way or the other really. Personally, I still see plenty of independent mechanic businesses; I live down the street from two of them now, at a prior residence a year ago in a totally different state, I lived down the street from another one that was constantly busy and had people working there at very late hours to get all the work done. Then why I go to dealerships (I was shopping for a car a while back) I find them all closed all day Sunday, and closed early on other days. If your service department were busy, you wouldn't be closed on the weekends.
So again, I don't think we can prove anything either way here, and I'm not so sure about "the vast majority of people having trusted mechanics", but I really don't think that the vast majority of car owners use dealerships for all their service. I think that people use them when their car is brand-new (because it's covered by warranty), and I think owners of not-too-old luxury brands (BWM, etc.) probably use dealerships more often, however I think people who own cars that are 10+ years old probably rarely use dealerships, if ever. People who have less money to spend on cars, and who buy used cars (or keep cars a long time) I believe are naturally going to look for better deals for car service, and that's going to rule out stealerships very quickly.
As for YourMechanic, I hadn't heard of that, but it sounds like a great idea. But if it's successful, I think that shows that a lot of people want a trusted (non-dealership) mechanic, even if they don't currently have one. Also, don't forget, a lot of people these days are more mobile, and move around from time to time, so they'll need a new mechanic when they move.
I found a datasource, it's dated (2011) it shows people trust their "shop" which could be a dealer, chain, or independent. With a 37% split going to independent and 30% to dealerships. I think you are right that we probably wont find any data on if people have a trusted mechanic since this also shows that there is a lot of price shopping going on.
But with all that said, in the broader conversation I'd say I was wrong. Even if you don't have a trusted independent mechanic more people prefer that option, even if they use a different one every time, over the dealership.
