Those high-end brands who offer free maintenance include BMW, MINI, Jaguar, Land Rover, Saab and Volvo. Cadillac also joins the club too, with the 2011 model-year vehicles.
VW even joined the game a few years ago, becoming one of the first full line mainstream brands to get in the game. And now Toyota and Scion have come to the party, adding free maintenance. Ironically, the Lexus brand, which is the posh premium sister brand to both Toyota and Scion doesn't offer offer a full scale free maintenance program. Toyota, unlike Lexus, took a lot of heat earlier this year for a rash of recalls and allegations of sudden acceleration. On the other hand Scion wasn't affected by the recalls, but by its aging product line. Sales have been sagging and the Japanese automaker is hoping that free maintenance will shore up soft sales, while they reload the pipeline with a fresh line up of new vehicles over the next few years.
Maintenance programs can vary from automaker to automaker. Maintenance could cover anything from oil changes to brake pad replacements to replacing brake rotors to replacing the air filter to rotating tires. The maintenance programs usually coincides with the basic manufacturer warranty. However, in the case of both Toyota and Scion, the basic warranty is for 3 years or 36,000 miles, while maintenance is only covered for 2 years and 24,000 miles. We suspect more automakers will jump in soon. This will be as common as automakers covering the powertrain for up to 100,000 miles.
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