[Maestro]

I heard and seen where people have complained about why a Dealer will not fix or can not fix something on their car covered under warranty.

I work with some people who came out of the Automotive Industry specifically they worked for what was the US big 3. One of the guys I worked with was responsible for dealing with warranty returns from the dealers. His job was to make sure what they were returning for warranty credit was in fact covered under a warranty or it was actually the part that was bad. This information is coming from these folks perspective.

Here is what they said. If a dealer tried to return a part that was not in fact bad or could not show how the replaced part was the reason the person brought the car in for a warranty repair they would reject the part. If they could not show it was defective then the repair would be on the dealerships nickel since the manufacturers would not reimburse them for the parts or the repair labor.

They also said that over time they learned which dealerships had a clue about how to repair cars and which one used the shotgun approach to repairs. So the good shops they tended not to scrutinize as much as the bad one.

Because the Manufacturers put so much pressure on the dealers to prove the parts are actually defective many times dealer are unwilling to fix or replace parts in cars unless they know they are not working or know for sure what they replace will fix the problem. Which translates into unless there is a service bulletin saying to fix this problem replace this or do this dealers many time will do nothing and send you on your way.

The other things, which they could not prove but suspected, was problem that showed up near the end the warranty period but were not not hard failures or kept the car from running or being safe they would try to avoid fixing until it was outside warranty since you had to pay them more for the repair than the manufacturers would pay them. They only got cost on the parts where as if you paid you paid their profits on the parts. Plus you pay the for diagnosing time which Manufacturers many time do not.

They could not say is the above was true across the board or whether any of the Foreign manufactures had the same practices, however if they were owned by one of the big 3 most likely this practice spilled over.

So the next time you take a car in for warranty work and wonder why it was not fixed, you can understand they incentive behind the reason why many times it is in the best interest of the dealer to do nothing.