The roles the dealer will play in the future will undergo a dramatic change I guess.
It's difficult to see how they will be able to make any money from servicing, since there's nothing that really needs to be done to the engines or transmission, and the cycle parts (mainly the brakes) can be serviced by anyone, so they would be immediately undercut by backstreet garages or non-franchised service centres.
I think the ultra-modern glass palaces like the one in Cheltenham where we went to buy the Mini will soon be a thing of the past. They'll be simply too expensive to maintain.
