New car - not buying from local dealership but then service car with them?

Your local dealer will be happy to take your money. They don't care where you bought the car.

Unfortunately this isn't necessarily true. They will take money of course, but the source can matter as well.

First things first, manufacturers warranty is with the vehicle, not the owner. And every franchise dealer has it in their dealer agreement that they have to accept warranty work, so it shouldn't matter one bit where the vehicle was purchased from.

In the real world, there is a huge lack of trained technicians in the industry and a lot of dealers are backed up for weeks with bookings and broken down vehicles waiting a slot.

Which means everything is dependent on what the dealer decides to do next in their own workshop, and dealer agreements don't mean a damn to that. If a dealer prioritises their local customers there is little that the manufacturer or Importer can do about it. I've sacked dealers for excessive VOR but that is a long term process and not much use to some customer right now.

So, it isn't a problem to have a vehicle bought elsewhere, that happens all the time. But there are also a hell of a lot of dealers that put "their" customers at the front of the queue and "warranty" work at the back of the very long queue.

Whether your dealer is going to do that, none of us can tell. But I know dealers that have left vehicles off the road for months solely due to dealer resource.

I've had warranty work done at my local Hyundai dealer, didn't buy the car there. Had regular services there too.

Sounds like Celtic Tiger level service is back with some of them!

I'm not the type to leave bad reviews unless service is absolutely diabolical, but if anyone went out of their way to ring me and say that, I'd roast them on the reviews and never darken thier door again, fair play to you for taking your business elsewhere.

Have never bought a car from the main dealer closest to me as their prices are never competitive when looking to buy new or second hand.

Use them for servicing without any issue and have also got warranty work done with them. Can't see why they'd turn handy servicing money down.

Yes it depends on capacity of garage .I worked at a place that couldn't cope with amount of vehicles being g sold at start of celtic tiger years in terms of warranty work repairs. If the owner saw a car pull up sold from another garage he would jump up from. His desk and tell me he didn't buy that here we dont want it

Ooh, I think I know that dealer.

If not, the one I know with that attitude was also a Hyundai warranty centre and told all the Hyundai customers to buy a Kia or stop coming there.

I think I know the one they wouldn't be on a triangular-shaped site, would they? They charged me for diagnosing an issue with a Santa Fe, fit an unneeded new battery and then said they couldn't do the work, said it needed a new fuel pump and high pressure rail and put me in contact with another garage who wanted to repeat and charge me for the diagnosis again, long story short a few hours on the internet and one fuel pump relay later the issue was sorted on my driveway.

Plenty profit in regular servicing of vehicles under warranty, most will gladly take a booking.

was he really that **** stupid?

Plenty of valid points for and against but one thing for certain, don't expect any dealer level out of warranty goodwill if needed.

Dealers make more money from services than selling new cars. As far as I'm aware.

Why not give the local dealer the chance to match or better what you are being offered further afield? If they can't match on price, they could throw in a couple of years free servicing for example to make up the difference.

Would approach it that you would really like to buy from them because you are local etc but they need to help you on the price difference. If they know you are a genuine buyer rather than a time waster they will want to do a deal. If you happen to know/bump into the dealer principal or owner then all the better.