In 2019, private Dutch people and small entrepreneurs brought their car to the garage more often for a service, repair or inspection than this year. This is evident from the 2019 Aftersales report of the Royal RAI Association. They took their car to the garage no fewer than 17,9 million times. This turns out to be a record number since the start of the Aftersales Monitor in 2009. The proceeds from this maintenance in 2019 yielded the garages 3,95 billion euros. That is eight percent more than the year before.

RAI Association chairman Steven van Eijck: 'It is encouraging to see that motorists no longer postpone maintenance. After years of decline, more and more people see the value of maintenance for the condition of the vehicle as well as for road safety. In addition, we see that cars are becoming increasingly reliable and annual average expenditure is decreasing. New future market challenges are the changing maintenance needs of electric cars and the transition to connected vehicles. This requires high-quality professional knowledge and skills. Garage owners can respond to this and specialize '.

Their purpose research is to gain insight into the behavior and satisfaction of the Dutch motorist with regard to maintenance and repair of the car. The fact that people have been less to the garage for maintenance this year is due to the corona crisis and the garages are noticing that well. Maintenance is very important to a car, maintenance on cars from 4 to 6 years old has become cheaper in recent years. Annual expenditure on maintenance has fallen. In 2010, an average of 670 euros per year was spent on maintenance and in 2019 this was an average of 461 euros.

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