The best of the best: Germany’s top 1,000 car dealerships 2016

Hamburg, 11.03.2016 – A profession commonly associated with clichés such as mileage scams, undisclosed previous damages to vehicles or unfair sales agreements: this is a challenge that roughly 36,000 car dealerships in Germany have to face every day. However, these issues raise questions for consumers as well. What is the best way to find a good car dealership? Are big brand names a sign of quality or is it the small car dealership next door, that has been around for three generations, that deserves the loyalty of customers? In order to find answers to these questions, Statista and Auto Bild decided to launch a second edition of the search for the 1,000 best new and used car dealerships in Germany.

More than 20,000 car dealerships were invited to participate in a survey and recommend fellow dealerships. In addition to this, roughly 12,500 consumers, all of which had bought a car within the last three years, were interviewed for an extensive customer survey. During the survey, customers were asked about the car dealerships they knew and invited to rate service performance, product range, prices and their overall level of satisfaction.

And the results? German consumers are not blinded by big and shiny brand names; human values and ethics are the most important factors when it comes to creating trust between consumers and their dealerships. In line with this, 71% of car buyers stated that transparency in terms of information and conditions were most important to them during the purchase process. The study found that Germany’s best car dealerships are spread across the whole nation – roughly a fifth of awarded dealerships can be found in North Rhine-Westphalia.