Trade body clash with VM

20 April 2012  

LAST month we reported on how Nissan promoted its new menu servicing products with the unfortunate headline ‘fix the price, not the car’.

The text of the offer sent out by the VMs head office described the interim service packages being offered at a price that would ‘make independent garages squirm’. It went on to describe such operations as ‘under the arches businesses’.

Not surprisingly, this wording has provoked a reaction from the aftermarket.  Brian Spratt of the IAAF said: “It’s a cheap slur from Nissan on the quality of most independent garages. I know several excellent service centres run from business premises underneath railway arches, but it doesn’t stop them being very good professional businesses, servicing their customers car to the highest standards. All this really means is that efficient, economic and convenient local independent garages have given Nissan dealers a bloody nose and now they’re using cheap comments to try and regain the business. It’s pathetic!”

Ironically, the price of a full service at a Nissan dealer is unlikely to make an independent – or anyone else squirm. At £229 it is roughly equal to the rest of the market.