Doing regular maintenance, dealer starts hitting me with future stuff to do like wheel aligning , corrosion cleaning, but 160 to change a car engine filter sounds ridiculous, is this normal pricing?
Doing regular maintenance, dealer starts hitting me with future stuff to do like wheel aligning , corrosion cleaning, but 160 to change a car engine filter sounds ridiculous, is this normal pricing?
Dealerships charge so much because their shops have a built in branding. They have Toyota on their sign and they know they will get way more leads than Tony’s Car Repair because it’s Toyota’s Car Repair.
They can overcharge and lose some people on price because they will still keep getting leads walking in the door since they are the “official Toyota shop”.
I seriously think that if they didn’t rob people in basic stuff like air filters, they might build some good will with customers and when a major fix needs to be done, people will go to them for that because there will already be a relationship.
Discount Tire in my city has a great reputation. They do free air checks and patching of tires. I always tip the workers for this but this builds good will. They patched my tire which I didn’t buy from them for free! Guess where I went to get my tires when they needed replacing?
Man if you think the dealers are ripping people off by charging people $110 for filters you should see the margins on the quick lube places.