I think they’re a mixed bag. I’ve had really bad experiences at an Audi dealer (eg telling me my car urgently needed an oil too up for £20 because it was on 3/4 on the dipstick, and not backing down or apologising when challenged). Mazda dealer near me seems good, found and fixed a problem and gave me a discount as we’d expected it to be warranty but it wasn’t.
Am hoping the MINI dealer, who I’ve had mixed experiences with (never tried to rip me off, friendly, but sometimes incompetent) are super-cimpetent today as my wife’s car is in for a horribly expensive repair… (the variable valve timing units have a little gauze filter to make absolutely sure that no dirt in the oil gets in and blocks up the precisely made valve timing unit. Turns out the filter can fall to bits, then a large lump of gauze filter destroys aforementioned precisely made valve timing unit… And you have to take a vast amount off the engine to lock the timing to remove the one bolt that holds it on…)
My daily driver is a 2013 Mazda6 Sport. (Actually it isn’t, I drive the NB every chance I get, but you know what I mean). Anyway, I bought it from Magna Mazda, the local Mazda main dealer, with a full dealer service history and to maintain that they’ve serviced it ever since. Never had an issue.
Two annual services during lockdown were £150 and £200, reduced rate due to low mileage. Price includes MOT, collection and full valeting. They are a nice friendly bunch and I couldn’t be happier with the service I get from them.
My wife once owned from new a BMW 520D, which suffered a rear light cluster failure out of warranty. C.£495+ VAT + fitting. I queried this with BMW, arguing a ‘prestige’ motor vehicle should not have such a failure less than a year outside of warranty.
The manufacturer asked the dealer one question - was it serviced to specification? When being told “yes”, the part was replaced free of charge.
No argument from me, with thanks to BMW for doing this.
The problem here is that where it was serviced will have had zero effect on the rear cluster failure. So what it boils down to is that they will do whatever they can to keep a customer that uses their service department happy. They don’t want you to go elsewhere. If you have already gone elsewhere then tough, they don’t care.
When I needed a new rear hub on my ND out of warranty it was done with a Mazda contribution. The percentage contributed is worked out with a formula. Age, mileage and number of owners comes into it but also whether it has full dealer history. At least it’s not just a yes or no.
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