Consumers prefer independent auto shops to their new car dealers

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Consumer Reports' annual survey once again found that consumers prefer independent auto shops over new car dealers. What can we do to serve you even better?[/caption]Consumers prefer independent auto repair shops like Auto Lab over new car dealers, according to an annual survey from Consumer Reports.In the annual survey, conducted by the Consumer Reports National Research Center, independent auto shops outscored dealership service departments for overall satisfaction, price, quality, courteousness of the staff, and work being completed when promised.The entire list of independent shops got high marks on those factors, and Tesla was the only carmaker to outscore independents on the service side. This new player earned high praise for its on-time repairs, courtesy, price, quality and overall satisfaction.Although it's not a huge surprise—the survey shows the same preference for independents year over year—it's still a nice victory for independent auto repair shops everywhere.But we don't want to take this win for granted. We want to ask you: What can we do to make our services better for you, our loyal clients? We encourage you to share your ideas and suggestions with us so we can continue to be the very best at what we do.The survey was based on subscriber satisfaction with repairs on more than 121,000 vehicles—80,000 of which were repaired at new car dealers and about 41,000 of which were done at independent shops.View the Consumer Reports article.View the details results of the survey. (Available to Consumer Reports subscribers only.)Again, I encourage you to share your comments with us about how we can improve our services to you.