You totally ignored what I said. They don't put Equus owners in Accents, they have Genesis loaners they give them. BUT...Equus service is more expensive than service on other Hyundai models.
So like I said, are you guys who are worried about this willing to pay more for service to get the perks you want? I've had the perks, they're nice, but I take my Lexus to my no-perks independent one garage stall mechanic instead of the dealer and ride the metro to work, because its half the cost. The Lexus dealer would come get mine and do all that too...but you pay for that in the cost of the service. No different with the Equus.
They only do this with the Equus, not the Genesis. Like I said, they don't do that out of the goodness of their hearts...they charge a different service rate for Equus owners.
Jeep charges the same rates for a $50,000 Overland Summit they charge for a $15,000 Dodge Dart...and you get the same service.
People are so entitled, sheesh
Under warranty, I should be treated better for buying the $50k vehicle than the $15k vehicle.
Out of warranty would I be willing to pay higher rates? Maybe, it would depend on the job to be done and the dealer (and the quality of work/service). But under warranty, I simply think it's absurd to treat the buyers of your flagship vehicle the same as the buyers of your cheapest trash on the lot.
I think you're focusing on the wrong aspect of this though. You're concerning yourself with when you bring the car in for routine service, and thus are paying for it yourself. As you've mentioned, I very likely would either DIY the service, or take it somewhere less expensive if it was just a quick service.
However, that isn't the issue at hand. The issue at hand is when your car is in for WARRANTY, because the product that they built is not functioning correctly, and thus the cost is on them. In this situation, it's unacceptable to ask me to HUGELY downgrade my vehicle, because there was a defect in the vehicle that they built. I'm paying for a certain quality of vehicle, and if because of a defect that vehicle is taken out of commission, it's only logical and fair for the dealership to provide a vehicle that is comparable to what I own and/or acceptable to my standards.
And it's not like they'd have to have a fleet of loaded out Summits to do this. I don't think many people would be THAT upset about a nicely equipped Laredo X or Limited, or even a loaded Compass Limited or Liberty Limited. But when my truck has Nappa leather and a pano roof, I better at least be getting some lower quality leather seats and a normal moonroof. And again, it's not like they're losing a ton of money to do this, they slap a few stickers on the cars, run them around for a few months, then sell them as a demo car or something for a couple grand off at most. It's not like they're eating the entire cost of these vehicles.
There's a LOT of competition out there, and other manufacturers have taken heed to the fact that higher end customers will step down into their brands if they treat them right and build them great vehicles.
FWIW, the Hyundai dealer back home gave out nicely equipped Santa Fes, Tucsons, Sonatas, and Genesis to their customers for loaners. If you had one of those, that was what they would offer you at first. The Hyundai dealer here has Santa Fes and Sonatas, both nicely equipped.
And lastly, there's something to be said for having pride in the top of the line products and people wanting to step up into them. A friend of mine had an old Integra that was in the Acura dealer for some time (accident related) and they gave him a nicely equipped TSX for a loaner. He was blown away by how nice it was, an by how much better it was than his old car. He told his parents about it and how nice it was, and when they were shopping for their next car they remembered how he said that the dealer gave him this great loaner and how nice it was, and they decided to check out the MDX (which they had not planned to). They ended up LOVING the MDX and bought one. A few years later, my buddy had started making better money, and was in the position to get a new car. His first and only stop was Acura, where he picked up a brand new TSX because the loaner he had he loved so much.
If you show people how much nicer your good stuff is, they're more likely to want to upgrade. They're also more likely to tell people, and those people are more likely to want to buy from you. It's never a smart decision to take your best and highest end customers and treat them like trash.
At the end of the day, a LOT of WK2 owners (especially higher end WK2s) came from other brands, and were comparing the WK2 to more expensive/prestigious models. I was comparing it to the LR4, GX460, X5, ML, Touareg, and RX350 - I felt that the Jeep flat out bested them. Jeep should capitalize on this by realizing that the top end of its client base is changing, and that they expect better. If they don't adapt, they will undo all the hard work they've put in to get higher end clients and instead lose them back to the higher end brands and they'll be even more firmly rooted in them.