AutoMD.com, which is owned by U.S. Auto Parts Network, an auto parts supplier, collected data (in 2011) from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, the Federal Highway Administration and the Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association. Car owners who went to dealers for repairs spent an average of $1,209 a year versus $903 for those who used independents. These included common repairs jobs like brake work, transmission repairs and window replacements.
Excerpts from a "Car Talk" recent newsletter:
" We've been asked this question for years, and we've always said, "Yes, they do." Of course, we had no evidence to support that statement; just a gut feeling. So we finally broke down and did some research - details are below - and found that overall the dealers in our study charged 15 % more than independent repair shops for the same repairs.
We also found that what you pay for repairs is strongly influenced by where you live. For example, if you lived in Maryland, you'd pay almost $3000 for the same repairs for which that sleazeball brother-in-law of yours in Montana, would pay less than $1500!
Here's What We Did:
We chose 2 average vehicles (a Dodge Intrepid and a Honda Civic) and 4 common repairs - (if you own a 3- or 4-year old car, you might very likely have to do all these repairs in the same year.) Replace Timing belt and water pump Replace Front brake pads and rotors Replace front and rear struts (shocks) Replace the alternator
Then we commissioned Paul Murky, president of Murky Research and Development Company, Incorporated, Partners, Limited, to survey both dealers and independent repair shops and ask for the price to do the repairs on each of the vehicles. He got prices from 158 dealers and repair shops around the country. Disclaimer Obviously, we did not actually bring these cars to any of the shops, so we don't know if they would actually do these repairs for the prices quoted to us. We don't have any hard evidence, but we've heard that some shops give low quotes and then sock it to you once they have your car. But buying 158 cars to do the real test seemed a little beyond our budget!
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