Lantley wrote:
Dealers really are compensated in full for their warranty repair efforts. For this reason there is a non selling dealer warranty issue.
Not quite. While the dealer's shop rate is preapproved within the contractual arrangement between the dealer and the trailer manufacturer factory warranty reps will
always question the number of hours required for proper repair, often requiring repeated requests on the part of the dealer's service coordinator before the repair will finally be approved. This isn't an uncommon practice at all and in particularly difficult cases the service manager may need to become involved ... and if that doesn't do it the process may then even have to on to the dealer himself who in extreme cases may have to fall back on his own personal relationships with factory management to resolve the situation. Meanwhile no parts will be ordered, the repair is delayed, and the customer becomes even more frustrated, but so too will the dealer, particularly the service manager who would like nothing more than to quickly and efficiently resolve any issues to the customer's satisfaction. Unfortunately many of us don't seem to understand this process and instantly do the worst thing we can by immediately taking our frustration out on the dealer, and by doing so instantly lose the one real friend we have on our side in dealing with the factory. :S
Dealers do try to clean up the mess however often dealers are not truly capable of fixing the problems.
An oversimplification of fact, perhaps true in some cases but certainly not in others. Techs at my own dealer are certainly qualified, have all the necessary training and certificates to prove it, regularly visit the factory they represent for updates on construction methology, and could easily entirely disassemble / reassemble any trailer if there was a need to do so. I've personally seen it done - slide rooms removed entirely, back and side walls removed entirely and replaced - just a normal day's work for a qualified tech.
We often read of multiple trips to fix the same problem.
Again, an oversimplification, especially when we're talking warranty repair. If the dealer requests approval for 10 hrs but the factory rep absolutely refuses to approve any more than 7 hrs then no service manager interested in doing his part to run an effective business model to going to eat those additional 3 hrs - the tech will be instructed to do what he can in those 7 approved hrs and no more but this doesn't mean the service dept is ineffective or unqualified.
Quality control issues need to be resolved at the factory not in the field.
In many ways the whole business model is flawed, leaving the RV consumer holding a bag of warranty headaches that are often not resolved easily or efficiently.
Sure, there'd be far fewer warranty requests if manufacturers were willing / able to improve quality control at the factory level, however this a cost the market itself has proven time and again it's not willing to support. Knowing that those manufacturers who in the past did attempt to improve on the status quo are no longer around would discourage any of the current survivors to not fall into the same trap.
