The problem with dealers and warranty repairs

brulaz wrote:

Lessmore wrote:

brulaz wrote:
Transengineer over at cumminsforum has a great rant about why dealer service departments are problematic:
Transengineer Rant

He is referring specifically to warrantied repairs paid for by RAM.
In summary:

transengineer wrote:
Yes, this is one reason why new vehicles are so expensive. And why dealerships are such profitable businesses. The more they screw up, the more money they make.

Are other manufacturers this bad? Maybe the Tesla model of manufacturer provided warranty repairs is better.

That's quite a jump implying Tesla would somehow be better.
...

I made no such implication. "Maybe" is the term I used. The "somehow" is that with Tesla, the manufacturer, is directly responsible for warranty repairs of their cars. Thus they have more control over how they are done.

With the franchise or dealership model, RAM apparently has little control, and "the more they screw up, the more money they make."

It has nothing to do with Tesla per se :R , but is all about how best to handle warranty repairs.

Whether the other manufacturers have such loose control over their dealers is another question. And maybe RAM could step up and improve how their dealers handle this.

What bugs me is that such sloppy repair work under warranty will prolly translate to sloppy repair work out of warranty. And if your local RAM dealer is all that's available to you, you are screwed.

I am afraid your assumption about Ram not having any control over the dealership's repair process is very wrong. Any and all warranty repairs must be approved for payment by the manufacturer after being submitted to them. Every major manufacturer has an incredibly sophisticated system controlling their warranty process and approval process. Their warranty algorithm will immediately flag a suspicious repair that falls outside the parameters of repair set by their engineers and the engineers of the suppliers. They have the option to reject the repair payment, call for the involved parts for inspection, or to send in a team for an audit and chargebacks when there is too much discrepancy.

The internet is full of mechanical warriors who know far more than the dealer or the manufacturer about the product and how to repair it...or so they claim. The people who designed the product, built the product, pay the warranty costs, and process millions of warranty claims yearly would most likely have a better chance to have this knowledge. Every warranty repair order claimed is computerized and analyzed. Every repair is compared to thousands of other similar repairs, repair policy and procedure, and the guidelines established by the supplier of the components. I will guarantee you the dealer cannot just claim additional parts for the repair for higher profits and the manufacturer just casually pays them.