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Greetings to all car lovers. Today I will reveal part of the harsh reality hiding behind authorised dealerships. We will look at something that has been annoying me for a long time, and that is starting to annoy you, the customers, too. Authorised dealerships. Those glass cathedrals with a reception desk, where you get a coffee before anyone even looks at your car. Places that present themselves as luxury centres of care for you and your vehicle, but in reality often cannot offer the most important thing - a quality repair.

At first glance everything looks perfect. Staff in shirts, new models on display, a service adviser who within three minutes throws out a repair price and a two-day deadline, even though none of the technicians has even seen your car yet. But the moment something more than a light bulb breaks, reality arrives. The real one.

Many people wrongly believe that “authorised dealerships are staffed by greenhorns with no experience.” Wrong. It is not that the technicians are incompetent. The problem lies elsewhere – with the manufacturer itself. The manufacturer does not give the dealership any freedom. There is no fault finding, there is no real repair. There is only replacing the whole unit according to the table.

Repair a damaged engine? No. Replace the whole thing. That is what is prescribed. It does not matter that half of the engine is fine and the other half could be saved; according to the “guidelines” it is not done. That is how this beautifully planned system works. With some brands, Jaguar for example, you cannot even buy individual internal engine components. Not because they do not exist, but because they are not intended to be replaced separately. The manufacturer does not want you to repair the car. The manufacturer wants you to pay, ideally again and again. In small doses, but regularly. And that is how a lovely cash flow is created.

So the authorised dealership plays exactly by the manufacturer’s rules. It is an expensive factory where the mechanic has no room to think. He has no way of doing things differently. And even if he wanted to help, he is not allowed to. It is not in the table? It does not exist. You want to save the customer’s engine? Tough luck. Replace the whole thing, connect it, invoice it and done.

And what is worse – it is not always done properly. Authorised dealerships often return cars to customers with faults that they have merely covered up. Why? Because they have to fit into the set standard of time and price. A repair that drags on or departs from the routine is undesirable. The customer must not complain that he paid more, so corners are cut. Something is not finished. Something is “forgotten”. And the car drives off… until it comes back. Simply put - any repair at an authorised dealership must be purely and simply profitable, both in terms of time and, of course, money.

And that is exactly why people are starting to look for alternatives. Workshops like ours. We do not show off with a coffee machine or a shiny floor, but we know what we are doing. We can find a way where the “tables” claim there is none.

And in conclusion? At first glance an authorised dealership can look like a temple of certainty. But the more you see of it, the more you realise it is not about caring for your car. It is about caring for the manufacturer’s income. And that is one hell of a difference.

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