Dealer warranty rant

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Apollo14

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Why is it that dealer's make it the customer's problem because they don't like to do warranty work?

As I see it, they became dealers and signed a contract with the manufacturer. If they didn't want to do warranty work, they shouldn't have become dealers!

Isn't this an "entitlement" mentality?
 
All depends on what the work is. Ford has a report dealers get and if you have too many repairs in a certain area they penalize the dealer financially until their repairs in that area come back down to normal.
 
Originally Posted By: mikefxu
I just bring them the TSB and tell them to fix it.

Edit time ran out...

I just bring them the TSB and tell them to fix it.

I had the block crack on one of our company 2007 Civics they couldn't diagnose it the first time so we did a oil change and put UV dye in the coolant and once it showed in the oil we told them to fix it. Honda provided a 8 year 100k extended warranty for this problem. The block cracked in the PCV galley and would slowly ingest coolant vapor. They had the short block swapped in just over 24 hours.

On our personal 2012 Civic the rear TPMS sensors went bad and they replaced them under warranty with no effort.

We also have GM trucks at work and had no problems with them warranting them either. We had a transmission go in a truck just days out of warranty and GM covered 50% of the cost to replace the transmission. All I did was ask the dealer to run it by GM, I didn't make a stink. I was expecting them to stick to the warranty terms but they made an exception.

Can't speak for other brands, only have experience with Honda and GM. We now have two Nissan Rogue at work so I will see how the do if and when they need warranty work.

My uncle has been a Ford man forever, big diesels that are actual put to work and he left them and now buys GM due to warranty and dealer issues.
 
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Originally Posted By: Apollo14
Why is it that dealer's make it the customer's problem because they don't like to do warranty work?

As I see it, they became dealers and signed a contract with the manufacturer. If they didn't want to do warranty work, they shouldn't have become dealers!

Isn't this an "entitlement" mentality?


Whatever the internal issues between FMC and the $tealerships it doesn't mean squat to the customer, if their car has a problem and the customer gets blown off and goes away unhappy that
schlock operation is going to have that customer telling
EVERYONE they know to stay away from not only that $tealership but that brand of automobile as well.

The penny wise pound foolish attitude of many companies never ceases to amaze me, because screwing over the customer ALWAYS comes back to penalize those businesses in some way. But these places NEVER seem to get that.

Apollo, you should have the mods move this topic to
General Automotive so that the right people see it.
 
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Unless it has changed from 30 years ago the factory allotted time for warranty work cuts the normal flat rate time a good bit. It was almost unheard of to beat the allotted time from the factory plus they didn't pay the same rate as the public. Less profit for the dealer.
 
After dealing with new car warranty issues for 27 years with GM, Ford, Jeep, and Honda I stopped buying new cars. I was tired of fighting to get them fixed. Among the four, I wouldn’t rate any “better” than the others. All were a hassle.

Last three I’ve bought used, and have been great after a little work. I’ve saved money and time fighting with the dealer, and am not as paranoid about maintaining the newness.

I would still consider buying a new car, but it’s been 8 years. It will take a lot for me to fork over the bucks required for the “new car experience” again. Bluetooth, 8 speaker/2 sub stereo, back-up cameras, GPS, DVD players, direct injection, VVT, turbos, superchargers, TPMS, and electronics everywhere aren’t an incentive for me at the moment. At the moment, I might be more inclined to buy a nice ‘68 Beetle.
 
Originally Posted By: Charlie1935
Unless it has changed from 30 years ago the factory allotted time for warranty work cuts the normal flat rate time a good bit. It was almost unheard of to beat the allotted time from the factory plus they didn't pay the same rate as the public. Less profit for the dealer.


Which they signed up for. And when they sell you the car, they rave about the dealer service experience and the benefits of buying new.
 
Originally Posted By: Apollo14
Originally Posted By: Charlie1935
Unless it has changed from 30 years ago the factory allotted time for warranty work cuts the normal flat rate time a good bit. It was almost unheard of to beat the allotted time from the factory plus they didn't pay the same rate as the public. Less profit for the dealer.


Which they signed up for. And when they sell you the car, they rave about the dealer service experience and the benefits of buying new.


Then most of the time the customer finds out that all those
claims by their $tealership are outright LIES! Instead you find as soon as you hand over the money for the vehicle the place could care less about your problems. Many times the idiot service department will claim they can't duplicate obvious problems, and even when they do they try and NOT fix them. I agree buying new cars is really a painful and outrageously expensive experience.


Sure, there are SOME exceptions but they are few and far inbetween.
 
Originally Posted By: bdcardinal
All depends on what the work is. Ford has a report dealers get and if you have too many repairs in a certain area they penalize the dealer financially until their repairs in that area come back down to normal.


So if it's a legitimate warranty claim due to Ford"s "error" the dealer is penalized for correcting it and doing their job if there is too many of them? Doesn't give me a warm and fuzzy feeling about getting my Ford vehicle fixed for a warranty reason.

Whimsey

PS I've been a Ford owner since 1972
 
The problem is 9/10 of consumers aren't really car-articulate and while they get screwed by the dealer they either think it's their fault (for using a jiffy lube filter) or they can't string together a persuasive essay about how their car works and what the dealer's doing wrong.

This being a car enthusaist website we sometimes lose sight of how this works for the average joe.

The dealer plays the odds over who they think they can turn away... just like hospital ERs hoping the uninsured will get bored and go across town.
 
Originally Posted By: Whimsey
So if it's a legitimate warranty claim due to Ford"s "error" the dealer is penalized for correcting it and doing their job if there is too many of them? Doesn't give me a warm and fuzzy feeling about getting my Ford vehicle fixed for a warranty reason.


Ya it is a weird system. Basically they track all the repairs and if you are higher than average in your region you get a warning. Also if your $/RO is excessive you get another warning. They will do things like require more parts to have pictures sent in for approval or lower your hourly reimbursement rate.

What is messed up is you have some repairs where the technician is instructed by an engineer on the hotline to replace certain parts. Then the repair is performed, but the dealer gets back charged for the repair because an administrator decided that method of repair was excessive. So now the dealer does not get reimbursed from the manufacturer the cost of the parts (billed out at cost+40% in this state) and the labor to pay the technician.
 
I can't speak for other dealers, but where I work we really don't fight legitimate warranty claims. We have replaced a couple GMT900 dashboards for cracking, along with other major repairs. Sometimes GM will call back a seemingly piddly part, other times they pay no questions asked for something fairly major.

The techs here don't seem to hate the warranty jobs, so maybe GM does pay fairly on the labor. I don't know because I just sell the parts, and the shop counter is not my responsibility except when the shop counter guy is out. The last warranty or no warranty discussion I remember was with a 2014 Silverado that a customer had urinated inside of. It damaged a lot of stuff in the seat, and even then it wasn't automatically a "you're paying for this situation," but if GM called back the urine soaked seat, we would not get reimbursed, so it ended up being customer pay.
 
If the dealer was paid well for warranty work, during slow times they would be inclined to do work that wasn't really necessary just to make easy money.
 
Originally Posted By: 3800Series
I saved 90% in 15 mins by driving past the dealership and buying a car of Craigslist.


This sure seems like the best route.
 
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