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|Whatcar

15 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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