Which car maker offers the best servicing?

The What Car? 2017 Servicing Satisfaction Survey reminds you what goes on in the real world, and who really offers the best service
Graham Scott|Whatcar15 October 2017

It’s time for your car to be serviced again. It seems to be running well, and you have no worries. The car will come back fully serviced, clean and good for another year or 10,000 miles or whatever. What’s the worry?

What Car? decided to go and see if there was anything to worry about. Taking cars that were new or up to three years old, the survey asked 8300 motorists to rate their experience with their servicing agent. The criteria were: politeness of staff, quality of work and value for money.

This allowed a weighted rating from Alfa Romeo to Volvo and makes for some interesting reading. As you see, the top ten included Lexus, which might not surprise you, to Dacia, which just might. Honda being in the top three won’t surprise many, but what sort of nasty surprise is it to see Audi way down there near the bottom, only ‘beaten’ in the race to the bottom by Citroen and Jeep.

In fact take a good look, and observe how many premium brands are in the bottom half, everyone from Mercedes-Benz to Porsche. Clearly, getting the badge does not mean getting a great service experience.

If you’re wondering whether one particular aspect really damaged or lifted up a brand, here are the three criteria with the top winners and losers.

Attitude of staff

Lexus topped the charts overall and they scored best for staff attitude too. Jeep scored worst overall and they scored worst here as well.

Quality of work

Again, Lexus topped the leaderboard, and once again Jeep came bottom, this time with a really poor score. One reason why Lexus has such strong customer retention – one respondent was on his fifth Lexus.

Value for money

Here Lexus came off the leaderboard, to be replaced by Mini, perhaps a less surprising result. Honda and Mitsubishi followed up in this sector. Worst in this sector? Porsche. Owners just don’t like paying Porsche prices, as they don’t think they get value for money.

Position

 Brand

No of responses

Satisfaction rating

1=

Lexus

48

92.6%

1=

Honda

104

92.6%

3

Jaguar

51

92.4%

4

Mini

49

91.2%

5

Toyota

86

90.7%

6

Dacia

27

90.6%

7

Kia

79

90.5%

8

Mitsubishi

31

90.1%

9

Hyundai

96

90.0%

10

Skoda

204

89.3%

11

Volvo

123

87.3%

12

Renault

63

87.2%

13

Seat

85

87.1%

14=

Volkswagen

292

86.9%

14=

BMW

270

86.9%

16

Suzuki

48

86.5%

17

Alfa Romeo

17

86.3%

18

Mazda

145

86.0%

19=

Peugeot

48

85.8%

19=

Mercedes-Benz

123

85.8%

21

Subaru

14

85.7%

22

Ford

193

85.5%

23=

Porsche

90

85.3%

23=

Fiat

24

85.3%

25=

Land Rover

88

85.2%

25=

Nissan

160

85.2%

25=

Vauxhall

93

85.2%

So here is the overall rating for 30 manufacturers. Certainly something to consider if you’re thinking about buying a new car any time soon.

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