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Comment by rexf | Hacker News Reader

> Really? In the experience of myself and my friends, dealer repair is at best hit-and-miss and at worst feels downright dishonest... most of the people I know who felt "in the know" always used third-party repair people that they trusted.

Agree. I use dealers since they are the ones who provide authorized recall repairs. Otherwise, I go to the local, independent for much faster & cheaper service.

Dealerships have a really bad reputation so they are sometimes called stealerships.

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Are there independent Tesla service shops?

My understanding is that all work has to be done by Tesla to keep OTA updates.

My car is not a Tesla, so I can go to a variety of places to get service. Sorry if you misread and thought I was referencing independent Tesla service shops.

Dealerships can vary in quality - but I was disappointed with the local one here as they wouldn’t try to find the problem “because the ECM was reset so there was no code to read” so I had to figure it out myself.

> Dealerships can vary in quality

Which is part of the puzzle people are seemingly missing.

Get rid of dealerships - and you're stuck with the manufacturer's service - for better or worse.

Don't like that one particular dealership? Go to a different one... Unless you live in the middle of no where, you likely have at least two or more dealerships for your car's make within a reasonable distance. Find one that treats you right - for both service and sales.

> Get rid of dealerships - and you're stuck with the manufacturer's service

That's not true at all. Independent mechanics service cars, including almost most gas stations.

For warranty, recall, and factory maintenance, it usually does.

Most of those can actually be performed by independent repair shops if a dealer is too far away - but in the USA, that's pretty rare.

Dealers do great warranty work because the manufacturer pays so everyone onsite agrees to do expensiv repairs.

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