Canadian Dealership Service Bills Hit a Record $566
TLDR: J.D. Power’s 2026 Canada Customer Service Index–Long-Term Study found the average dealership service bill hit a record $566, and dealers are capturing a growing share of service dollars even as their share of total visits ticks up only slightly.
- The average amount paid for service at a Canadian franchised dealership reached $566 in the 2026 study, up 5% from $539 in 2025 and 51% higher than $375 in 2020
- Dealerships captured 49% of service visits among vehicles 4 to 12 years old but 63% of the revenue from those visits, a wider dollar share than visit share
- Aftermarket chains averaged $323 per visit, up 34% since 2020 – a slower six-year climb than dealership pricing; independent shops are a separate, pricier category at $363, up from $311 a year earlier, even as their visit share slipped
- Lexus and Mercedes-Benz tied for the highest satisfaction score among dealership brands at 841 of 1,000; the segment average was 806
- Satisfaction is weighted most heavily on service quality (32%) and getting the vehicle back promptly (20%), with the service advisor interaction itself the smallest factor at 15%
The average Canadian driver paid $566 to get a vehicle serviced at a franchised dealership, according to J.D. Power’s Canada Customer Service Index–Long-Term Study, released September 10, 2026. That is the highest figure the study has recorded. It is up 5% from $539 a year earlier, and 51% above the $375 average from 2020. The study surveyed 10,262 owners of vehicles four to 12 years old, fielded between March and June 2026, about their most recent dealership or independent service visit.
A Record Bill, Six Years in the Making
Dealership service pricing has not moved in a straight line, but the six-year trend is steep. The $375-to-$566 climb works out to roughly 51% in six years, well ahead of general inflation over the same period. Aftermarket chains rose too, from $241 to $323, a 34% increase, but they started lower and grew more slowly. Independent shops are a separate category that actually charges more than aftermarket chains: $363 per visit in 2026, up from $311 a year earlier, even as their share of visits fell. Blended across every service-facility type, the average bill for a vehicle in this four-to-12-year age band was $443, up from $415 in 2025.
J.D. Power’s methodology captures both warranty and non-warranty visits. It does not break out how much of the increase is parts costs, labour rates, or a shift toward more complex repairs as vehicles age. What it does show clearly is where the money is landing. Dealerships captured 49% of service visits in this age bracket but 63% of the revenue those visits generated. Visit frequency was essentially unchanged year over year. The growing revenue share is a pricing and mix story, not a traffic story.
The four-to-12-year-old vehicle population this study covers is also a larger slice of the Canadian fleet than it was six years ago. Affordability pressure on new-vehicle prices has pushed many owners to hold on to existing vehicles longer. A growing share of those vehicles carry driver-assistance features that require calibration equipment and factory training a corner garage may not have. That works in a dealership’s favour on complex jobs. It does not explain away the visits still going elsewhere for routine maintenance, where price is the deciding factor and a franchised shop has no technical advantage to fall back on.
The Visit-Share Gap Nobody Is Closing
That 49%-visits-to-63%-revenue split cuts two ways for a dealer principal. Dealerships are extracting more value per visit than independent shops. That likely reflects OEM-specific parts, more complex diagnostic work, and technician training a corner garage cannot easily replicate. But more than half of all service visits from owners of four-to-12-year-old vehicles still go somewhere other than a franchised dealer. Those are exactly the vehicles past their factory warranty and free-maintenance period. They are the ones a dealership has to earn back on service quality and price alone, not warranty lock-in.
Fixed operations already carries close to half of a typical dealership’s gross profit, a fact this outlet has covered in detail. A widening price gap between dealership and aftermarket service raises the stakes on that retention fight. Every customer who defects to an independent shop after the warranty period is lost fixed-ops volume. A dealership’s service absorption rate depends on that volume to stay healthy independent of new-vehicle sales swings.
Which Brands Are Pulling Ahead on Satisfaction
The study scored brands on a 1,000-point scale built from five weighted factors. Service quality carries the most weight at 32%, followed by getting the vehicle back on time (20%), the service facility itself (17%), how the visit was initiated and scheduled (16%), and the service advisor interaction (15%). Lexus and Mercedes-Benz tied for the top score at 841. Mercedes-Benz has now ranked at or near the top for a second consecutive year. Toyota followed at 829, Honda at 821, and Mazda at 819. GM dealerships scored 811, above the 806 segment average. Kia scored 810. Ford and Lincoln scored 807, also above average but toward the back of the pack among the brands reported.
The spread between the top score and the segment average is not large in absolute terms, roughly 35 points on a 1,000-point scale. The weighting matters more than the headline number. Service quality alone is worth nearly a third of the score, more than double the weight of the service advisor conversation that dominates most dealership training programs. A store that invests heavily in advisor scripting while under-resourcing the technicians doing the work is optimizing the smaller factor.
What This Means for Your Dealership
Rising prices are not, by themselves, a problem. The data suggests dealerships are winning the pricing argument with customers who stay, while still losing more than half the visits from older vehicles to shops that charge less. That split points to a few concrete moves for a GM or fixed-ops director.
Track your own effective price-per-repair-order trend against this benchmark. If your average ticket is climbing faster than 5% year over year without a matching climb in customer satisfaction or retention, that is a warning sign, not a win. Price increases without perceived value are exactly what pushes a customer toward an independent shop once their warranty lapses.
Weight service investment the way customers weight satisfaction. Service quality is worth double the service advisor factor, so dollars spent on technician training, parts availability, and first-time-fix rates will move the satisfaction number more than a friendlier front counter alone. Vehicle pick-up speed, worth 20%, is the second-largest factor and one of the more operationally fixable ones. A customer whose car is ready when promised forgives a lot elsewhere.
Use the four-to-12-year ownership window as a retention target, not an afterthought. These are customers past the free-maintenance period who have already decided the dealership is not their only option. A structured follow-up and reminder process for exactly this vehicle-age band is where the visit-share gap actually gets closed.
Treat the brand-level spread as a floor to clear, not a ceiling to admire. A segment average of 806 against a top score of 841 is a gap a single service department can close through operational discipline. It does not require a new facility or a new OEM program. The dealerships closest to the top are not necessarily the ones charging the least. They are the ones whose customers get the work done right the first time and get their vehicle back when promised.
For more on how service performance connects to the metrics OEMs use to calculate incentive payouts, see this outlet’s earlier look at how CSI scores drive dealership profitability and the CSI scores primer.