Dealerships spend significant money acquiring new customers while allowing existing service customers to quietly disappear.

One dealer group is attacking that problem with a very simple offer: a $49 oil change designed primarily to bring inactive customers back into the service drive.

That raises an interesting fixed-ops question.

Should certain maintenance services be treated as customer-acquisition products rather than profit centers?

A deeply discounted oil change may generate little immediate gross, but it can create opportunities for inspections, legitimate maintenance, future repair work and eventually the customer’s next vehicle purchase.

The danger is attracting only price shoppers who leave as soon as the promotion ends.

How should a dealer calculate the real value of a low-priced maintenance offer? Is the right metric gross on today’s RO—or customer lifetime value over several years?