The general sentiment about European cars—yes, including the otherwise mass-market Volkswagen—is that their routine preventive maintenance service costs higher than those of comparable Asian models. That’s true for the most part, which scares the budget-conscious car buyers away from German, French, Italian and Swedish brands.

Even the latest batch of China-sourced cars from Volkswagen Philippines—competitively priced as they are—can’t shake off the “expensive to own and maintain” perception. The Santana (P686,000), the Lavida (P1,171,000) and the Tiguan (P1,648,000) all have reasonable and actually tempting price tags, but not a few people online have expressed concerns about costly PMS.

Perhaps it’s for this reason that the distributor is offering customers free first-year or 10,000th-kilometer PMS for the Santana, the Lavida and the Tiguan. But that’s if they reserve their brand-new unit at the following Volkswagen mall events:

• SM City Cebu – July 3 to 9
• SM North EDSA – July 5 to 11

Volkswagen vehicles follow a yearly (or every 10,000km) PMS schedule. The distributor points out that this is more cost-efficient than the 5,000km interval that others implement.

Volkswagen Philippines is obviously hoping that this promotional offer will somehow allay the market’s prevailing worry about the higher pricing of after-sales service for European cars. If you’re seriously considering any of the above-mentioned VW models, we suggest you take advantage of this promo.