We're Celebrating Get To Know Your Customer Day With Cecil Villard!

April 15th marks National Get To Know Your Customer Day, and we couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate than taking a moment to chat with one of our most loyal customers, Cecil Villard! 

Cecil’s fascination with Mazda began all the way back in 1988. When his faithful Ford Lynx was ready to retire, a striking wine-coloured Mazda 626 caught his eye while driving down St Peters Road. Cecil couldn’t resist and was driving away in his first Mazda only an hour later!

Since then, Cecil estimates he’s owned at least 12 Mazda vehicles over the years, and currently cruises our Island roads in his sleek 2021 Mazda3. So what keeps him coming back to Centennial Mazda? It’s simple. The people and the product. 

“Purchasing a car is a major investment, so you  need to trust your dealer. Centennial Mazda really personalizes their care, and people really respond well to that.” Cecil says he even looks forward to his service appointments so he can catch up with our staff! “The service folks are so nice. You know everybody and it’s just comfortable.” 

Cecil says Mazdas have always been “nice, reliable, economic vehicles,” and have given he and his family some pretty memorable experiences throughout the years. He says one of his favourite memories comes just after he bought his first Mazda 626. Cecil remembers driving down to the Charlottetown Curling Club to show off his new ride and how impressed everyone was. 

That turned out to be the first of many instances people couldn’t get enough of Cecil’s Mazdas! He says he typically spends six to seven hours each weekend cleaning and maintaining his vehicles to keep them in pristine condition. And his hard work hasn’t gone unnoticed. Cecil has earned a reputation for keeping his vehicles in such good shape that our own Steve McKenna has even reached out to use his Mazdas as demonstration vehicles for other customers! After word got around about how well-maintained Cecil kept his Mazdas, people started waiting for him to trade his vehicles. On one occasion he remembers seeing his trade-in drive away only a few hours after leaving it with the dealership!

Cecil has had many Mazdas since 1988, but says his favourites were his most recent yellow Miata (of which only two were made!), and his black 2-door hatchback Precidia. Cecil has always been careful to maintain and service his vehicle on a schedule, saying “you don’t have to worry. You look after the car and it looks after you.”

We’d like to wish a special thank you to Cecil for sharing his experiences with us. As one of our longest-standing customers (and favourite familiar faces!), we are so thankful we get to meet people like Cecil on a daily basis. Thank you to all of our customers, both new and old, for choosing our dealership. We'd like to wish you all a happy Get To Know Your Customer Day from everyone here at Centennial Mazda!