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.
