Mazda has no plans to introduce a fixed-or capped-price servicing scheme for its vehicles in the near future.
Mazda Australia,which has experienced its best year on record in 2012 and remains a strong third in the sales tally behind Toyota and Holden(two brands that offer capped-priced servicing),is confident its resistance to offer a similar servicing program is not costing the brand additional sales.
Speaking with CarAdvice at the local launch of the updated Mazda CX-9,the company's national marketing manager,Alastair Doak,said car buyers"just want to understand they are getting value for money"and that fixed-priced servicing is not necessarily the answer to that problem.
"It's just a discount by another name.We would rather give our customers value and get them to understand and explain the servicing to them and that's what we do,"Doak said.
Toyota Australia was the first company to introduce a capped-priced servicing scheme back in 2008.Since then Mitsubishi,Nissan,Ford,Holden,Hyundai,Kia and Opel(in that order)have all introduced similar servicing schemes to entice buyers to not only buy in to the brand,but to also encourage more customers to service their cars at authorised dealers.
Mazda Australia does offer recommended servicing costs for all service schedules of the company's entire range,which the buyers have access to,but dealers are not obliged to charge the recommended price.Doak said that if a certain Mazda dealer decided to charge more than the recommended price,buyers could ask why and potentially take their business to another dealer.
Do you think the lack of a capped-priced servicing scheme is hurting Mazda?