A new survey finds car owners give independent repair shops higher marks than dealerships in servicing their vehicles.

(Dmitry Kalinovsky, ThinkStock)
(Dmitry Kalinovsky, ThinkStock)
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The Consumer Reports survey asked subscribers about their preferences for vehicle service, and "mom-and-pop" auto repair scored higher in all categories, including price, timeliness and courtesy.

"People were very happy, overall, with the franchise dealers. They just certainly preferred the independent mechanic experience, whether it was the price and such," said Consumer Reports Deputy Editor Jon Linkov. "With really few exceptions, independent shops got higher marks across the board, compared with the dealership service departments."

Linkov also said many people who took the survey felt price was a major issue in choosing a repair shop.

"Overall, price is really the biggest driver, and that's where you see the biggest difference between the dealers and the independents," he said.

Mark Rechtin, Consumer Reports' Cars Content Development Team Leader, added that "to be fair to mechanics at dealerships, our respondents also reported being very satisfied overall with their repais, despite being outscored by independent shops."

The one type of auto dealer that outscored the independent shops was the luxury electric car maker Tesla. But luxury car dealerships were at the top of the list among dealerships.  Buick, Lincoln, Cadillac, Lexus, Porsche and Acura were behind Tesla.

The Consumer Reports survey also found that not many car owners made an attempt to negotiate prices when seeking haggling over price. According to the report, fewer than than one in five car owners tried to haggle about the cost of their repair.  But among those who did haggle, between 60 and 82 percent were able to save money at dealerships, depending on the brand. Between 71 and 84 percent of those who haggled at mom-and-pop repair shops wound up getting the repair price knocked down.

The survey was conducted by the Consumer Reports National Research Center in 2014. It was based on consumer satisfaction with repairs on more than 121,000 vehicles. According to the report, 80,000 were repaired at dealers and more than 41,000 at independents garages.

 

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