Dealer recommended service

[gibsongreyone]

My dealership changed owners and the new subaru dealership owner has a recommended service that says to reblance the tires and 4 wheel alignment every 15000 miles. The have this attached to every service receipt and if you didnt do this, they will send an email saying that I must have overlooked this and I need to do it right away. I find nothing in Subaru factory manuals that recommends this. This dealership has been good for a lot of years but this bothers me. Time to look for another dealer?

[idosubaru]

54 minutes ago, gibsongreyone said:

My dealership changed owners and the new subaru dealership owner has a recommended service that says to reblance the tires and 4 wheel alignment every 15000 miles. The have this attached to every service receipt and if you didnt do this, they will send an email saying that I must have overlooked this and I need to do it right away. I find nothing in Subaru factory manuals that recommends this. This dealership has been good for a lot of years but this bothers me. Time to look for another dealer?

I'd lean towards staying with your current dealer.  

And yes you're correct you do not need to do those services.  It's straight marketing, that's it.  I view that stuff like billboards - laugh or ignore it. 

1. Follow your owners manual
2. ask here if you have any questions. 
The End. 

That's fairly standard marketing practices across *all dealerships*.  I would suggest sticking with them if you trust and have a relationship with the staff - service advisors or mechanics.  Don't let marketing dictate this - let the staff and actual services dictate it. 

With new ownership this is coming from much higher than the local staff and is certainly some marketing program or strategy they're just copying from someone else - many dealers (and online car forums - but not this one!) are bought by huge (sometimes international) conglomerates that try to monetize their holdings.  Many communcations and mailings aren't even done in house - some company in germany pays a 3rd party company to do the mailings and communications and keeps track of them.  It's not even happening at your local dealer at all - the decisions or mailings.   

They don't talk about "spending" money on mailings.  They say it like this "We generated $1.34 for every dollar we spent last year on that 3rd party company".  Anyway - maybe that wasnt' your dealer, maybe your neighbor bought the dealer.  But either way I wouldn't let marketing strategies impact what I think about the staff who actually talk to me and work on my car. 

If you go to another dealer - they ight not have the wheel recommendations but they probably have other marketing strategies that you'd have to be drunk to think they'll favor customers over generating sales, loyalty, connectivity, returns, etc. 

If the marketing gets signifincaltly worse over time that it is impacting services and decisions- then yes start looking elsewhere.  That can happen too - but I wouldnt' let one tire marketing trick dictate that. 

Edited March 2, 2021 by idosubaru

[NV Zeno]

Ido, I agree.  Pure marketing. 

If you feel compelled to rotate and balance your tires, that  might be better to have done at/ by the shop that installed the tires.  Many of them provide free rotations every X,000 miles, balance if necessary or requested.    

Just my 2 bucks