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Business for independent garages steadily rising since 2008

How Hungarians have their cars serviced

  • In 2018, 78 per cent of private owners had their cars repaired in non-dealer garages
  • Age of car is biggest factor in choice of garage type
  • Rise of electric cars likely to mean challenge for independent garages as well
Business for independent garages steadily rising since 2008

With more cars on the Hungarian roads than ever before, it is good times for repair garages, but the boom is not equally kind to every sector. A series of surveys taken since 2008 has been following Hungarian servicing habits and they have shown up interesting trends over these ten years.

Since 2008, Robert Bosch Kft. has commissioned the Medián Közvélemény- és Piackutató Intézet to monitor car servicing habits among the Hungarian population. Its surveys, taken every two years on a sample of 2400 people, have found business in independent garages to have been rising continuously since the start, stagnating only between 2012 and 2014. In 2018, 78 per cent of the public were taking their car to an independent repair garage.

The trend towards servicing at independent garages has been steadily strengthening. In 2008, only 58 per cent took their cars to these workshops, a proportion that has gradually risen to its highest point of 78 per cent this year, at the expense of dealer garages. People who repair their own cars are also a dwindling minority.

A spanner’s not enough any more
For reasons of interpretability, the Bosch-sponsored survey only divides repair garages into two categories – dealer and independent. This hides differences among the independent garages. Nowadays it is not replacement and procurement of parts that is decisive in service garages, but the most important is to have diagnostic equipment that is up to date and covers a wide number of car makes and an up to date knowledge.

Owners’ are mainly influenced in choosing the type of garage by the age of their cars. Owners of cars under five years old mostly take them to dealer’s garages (78 per cent, of which 56 per cent are guarantee repairs), but this figure falls to 32 per cent for cars between six and ten years old. Of cars in the eleven- to twenty-year age group, which includes the average age of 13.9 years, only ten per cent are taken to dealer garages and eighty-four per cent to independent workshops. The big technological revolution facing the automotive industry is the electric car, that – as well as making transport more sustainable, it could probably mean a challenge to car service garages.

Tags: Bosch, automotive, industry, car, usage, habit, survey

Mónika Hack

+36 70 510 5516