Fixing your clunker: the dealer or a gas station?

Don't let this happen to you.

I sometimes take my old Subaru, now long out of warranty, to a convenient gas station when it needs new brakes. Sometimes I take it to a dealer for an oil change.

I know that for an oil change it should have a new drain plug gasket, which is cheap; otherwise, the oil tends to leak. The dealer knows that, the gas station doesn't. Once, with a previous Subaru, the gas station said my anti-slip brake thingy was totally shot. The dealer said, nope, it's fine.

There are advantages and disadvantages of having your car serviced at either type of place. The New York Times has an excellent article on this. Here are a few points.

If something goes wrong when the car is under warranty, and we have to return to the dealer, will our warranties be voided? In most cases, no. The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act of 1975 ensures that except in rare instances, a dealer must honor the warranty. You do, however, need to be sure that nothing is done to the car that expressly voids the warranty. Some warranties, for instance, may prohibit specific cosmetic changes. And you want to make sure to keep all service records so that if there is a problem with the car and you need to return to the dealer, you can prove it got regularly serviced. 

Dealers’ initial labor costs are often higher than independents, but their greater expertise and state-of-the art equipment mean the repairs would go faster — and in the end cost less. Dealerships also have access to daily bulletins sharing information about fixing vehicles.

However, car owners who went to dealers for repairs spent an average of $1,209 a year versus $903 for those who used independents. 

Check if the repair shop has a blue seal of excellence — about 400,000 mechanics nationwide do. That means they’ve passed certain exams and have to be recertified periodically. Use the Automotive Service Excellence Web site, www.ase.com. 

Call a few shops, including your dealer and other mechanics, to check prices. Use website to try to diagnose the problem and compare repair costs so you aren’t reduced, as many of us often are, to simply saying, “The car sounds funny.” And don’t be afraid to negotiate.

Other good ideas in the article.

The dealer I use is not that far away. The people there are friendly. They've got all my data in their computer. And they have a pleasant place to sit while I wait. Still, I had my last oil change at a gas station I like.