Good thread and an interesting read. There are many reasons why we individually choose main dealer or specialist and it is each to their own, the decision maybe made on value of car, personal budget, recommendation, relationship, to personal experience of how we feel on speaking to the man with the know - on how to .......
Perhaps perception is another why we rule out other avenues, or as somebody commented one bad experience is far more expected to be posted than endless good experiences by nature.
From experience with our members one thing that gets flagged from time to time, are 'health checks' carried out by both Franchise and Specialists.
Why do they find work? One that once again is one person's marmite to another. Personally, if i paid to have a service carried out on my car by a service provider, i would want and expect a health check ran, not just at MOT, for one they are far more in the know to see what they are looking at than me, for reasons i may not be mechanically minded or that it's a part you cannot reach until revealed. A health check should be a working document if you like, in that a good provider will flag up to you, any recalls that are outstanding, an aproximate life span of any problems found, ie tyres - how much wear, a job they can see doing, if labour makes sense to do now as on the 'operating table' and would cause hours of extra labour going back in at a later date, then it is a good call to make and a decision to be made. From a dealer point of view if they didn't flag things up, how would you feel if the particular item was a safety issue and was never mentioned for fear of loosing a customer for cost implications or worse, or if that problem was not flagged up and caused you even greater expense in the end?
A health check, will allow you to budget, most things do not need doing immediately, merely give you heads up, i get it with my own car and i do the usual 'oh... that's good news..how much will that be?' But there is no getting away from it, cars need maintenance and we encourage our partners to keep you in the know and any good provider will do whatever they can to advise and help, they want to keep our custom and build relationships, i have the good fortune of speaking with many of the providers for your cars and believe it or not - it is their mission. This is obviously just my opinion but one i hope you will see from the other side of the table.... but at the same time I'm an owner/customer too.