Some dealerships are competent, honest and regard their customers as people they want to keep happy and to return to them for all things motoring, these same dealers bend over backwards to look after their customers, are knowledgeable and scrupulously fair. In dealing with warranty or even out of warranty problems these dealers will sort out issues with the importer or manufacturers customer relations depts, and make life for the customer easy. These dealers are usually family owned.

There are other dealers where the customer is just a money cow to be milked, they will tell you what you want to hear to make the sale then once they have your dosh you are just a nuisance, and once the car is out of warranty you are on your own, within warranty not much better.

In answer to your question, you'll get an honest answer from the first type, i can name several such of several makes, Toyota feature highly as usual.

You can guess the answer you'll get from the second, if they indeed have the knowledge.

Only my opinion of course.

Timing can be an issue... having to leave your car for a day each time something goes wrong is a hassle, so sometimes it's better to save up the issues until service time.

I remember my '01 C class going in for its first service with two sides of A4 of glitches, niggly faults and other minor issues. They had to have the car in again a week later so they could get everything fixed, including new fuse boxes, various pieces of switchgear, steering wheel, headlight units, transmission parts, etc - but to their credit got everything on the list sorted with no gripes.

Fast forward 10 years and my wife's Fabia has never needed anything more than a top-up of washer fluid in two years and two services.

A much simpler car, yes, but there is a degree of pleasure in driving a car which "just works"...

Yes, I'm scared of main dealers. I like to do everything myself where possible because I know that I will do the job properly and look after my vehicle.

I don't trust many mechanics with my vehicle. They probably won't treat it as well as I do, and if it comes back with an extra scuff I would be very upset. Their car parts are often rubbish too, and I would worry about getting dents from doors of other vehicles. In addition to that I would worry that they would wash it, which would almost certainly put loadds of scratches into the paintwork.

I would also need to balance up the cost. Typically, a day off work, at least 1 hour of traveling, and some petrol. With that time and money I could fix some simple problems myself eg. a squeaky seat.

I don't intend to ever take my car to a mechanic for anything other than tyres until the first MOT, and I will do all of the servicing myself.