The object of this thesis was to investigate customer behavior and car trade-in-time of customers of car dealership located in Oulu. Customer behavior was measured by examining satisfaction, loyalty and willingness to recommend towards brand, salesman and dealer. Car purchasing criteria was also under examination by investigating which of the criterion were most important for the customers. The study focused on customers who have bought a new car with financing because the target company had little knowledge of their behavior. The findings were presented as a whole along with a comparison of five car brands selected in the study.

The aim of this study was to increase target company’s knowledge of behavior of these customers and to discover customers who are thinking about trading in their car in the near future. Findings allow target company to inspect differences between brands and develop their operations.

The theoretical framework contained information about new car market in Finland, car as a product and car sales. Theoretical framework was deepened with empirical part which consists of interviews of two target company’s car salesmen in managerial positions. The study was executed as a statistical research. Information gathering method was computer-assisted telephone interview.

The findings revealed that satisfaction, loyalty and willingness to recommend towards brand and salesman were on good standards. Towards dealer these things had some room for improvement. The most important criteria for car purchasing were safety, handling characteristics and dimensions. For most customers, trading in their car was not a topical issue within 12 months.

The findings allow target company to see which sections are good and which bad with every car brand and thus can improve their actions. Concrete reasons between satisfaction, loyalty and willingness to recommend could be a topic for a follow-up research. With that knowledge understanding and opportunities to develop operations would be even better. The research could also be carried out in target company’s other locations so that comparison between branches would be possible.