Hyundai introduces capped-price servicing

Today’s announcement of iCare Capped-Price Service coincides with the company’s milestone of reaching one million car sales in Australia.

Hyundai announced its plans to offer a three-year capped-price servicing strategy across its entire range, which applies to both private and small business buyers starting with cars sold from the beginning of August.

Owners of cars such as the Hyundai i20 and Hyundai Accent (petrol) will pay just $189 for a yearly or 15,000km service for the first 50,000km or 40 months, whichever comes first. New buyers of the Korean brand’s popular i30 will pay $219 for the petrol or $289 for the diesel to service their vehicle.

The new cost of ownership strategy means that a new i20 or Accent (petrol) buyer will pay a maximum of $567 in servicing for the first three years.

The most expensive car to service in the entire Hyundai range becomes the diesel ix35 which will be $399 per service ($20 more than the Santa Fe diesel) which has a three year maximum total of $1197.

In a surprising move, Hyundai Australia says the new capped-price servicing initiative will apply only to cars sold from August 1st, which leaves out early adopters of the new Hyundai i30 and hundreds of thousands of other vehicles currently under Hyundai’s five-year warranty.

The move to introduce capped-priced servicing follows a similar and successful strategy by the likes of Toyota, Nissan and Mitsubishi, which have offered the service for some time, and were joined by Ford in July 2011 and Holden last April.

On the surface, the capped priced servicing strategy benefits new Hyundai customers by providing an assurance that services will cost no more than the quoted price across all dealers. Hyundai and its dealers will also benefit by enticing buyers to come back into dealerships for scheduled services instead of third-party mechanics.

Hyundai’s three-year capped priced servicing strategy adds to the five-year unlimited kilometre warranty, three years of navigational map updates (on cars with satelite navigation), as well as free roadside assistance for 12 months.