Misc. Warranty Co.'s Dictating Pricing

[jdpetey]

They have no technicians or facilities to make repairs to THEIR clients vehicles.
Do I really feel that their clients are ours? Not exactly. We basically become their doormats.

Recently had ANOTHER transmission sent here to be installed with no parts involvement.
I see it as desperation on the Service Dept. to get labor, most likely at a discounted rate.

Is it entirely wrong for me to feel that the Service Dept. should get a spine and decline accepting THEIR TERMS?

The way I see it, 'tow your vehicle' TO YOUR SHOP and do those repairs at those rates! That's right, YOU DON'T HAVE ONE.

Let the customer call THEM and inquire as to why their vehicle isn't already repaired.

It's a tough slog at times nowadays with let alone the Manufacturers cutting labor times to only add insult to injury by these companies.

Please, someone enlighten me to the benefits of conducting business on behalf of these arseholes!

[Fixed Ops Mgr]

I feel your pain and I am really struggling with this issue at my store. Really not doing well!! Recently in March we were notified that a large volume fleet customer of ours was contracting
with a fleet maintenance company effective immediately. Now the service dept has to contact them to get all repairs approved before starting work. I have been giving
parts estimates to service for repairs and service is always coming back and saying we are to high on the parts. "The maintenance company will pay this price" or they will ship
us the parts in and parts will make nothing. I asked service for several examples of part numbers we were to high on and after researching this I found out that the fleet maintenance
company must have a contract with some large GM wholesale dealer who will sell them parts at 2% over dealer cost. I can't and won't even try to compete with that. We were already
selling our parts to this fleet customer at GM wholesale price so we weren't making a lot of parts profit from them anyway but the service dept makes a good labor profit from them even
selling to them at a discounted labor rate.

I tried charging them a parts handling charge and fleet maintenance company said no.

I really want to tell this customer and their fleet maintenance company to go to h@# but I can't see taking the labor profit out of our store. I can't sell them parts anymore but
the service dept can still sell them labor.

[TimK]

Tell the customer it costs Y to repair the vehicle, if the warranty company only pays X, then they owe the difference.

Shipping in parts is a big no no.

Would service allow the warranty company to send their own tech to install the dealership's part on the vehicle?

[mightytitan9]

We've been running into this issue.

There's several things that service will come say "I need to know what the cost of this part is, this aftermarket company will only play 15% over cost", or on radios/clusters we've had some that only pay a $20 "handling fee".

My service department has no backbone. We're the only GM dealership within 30 miles. The only Dealership period within 20 miles. They'll let an aftermarket warranty company dictate the price of parts, as well as HOW MUCH PER HOUR they are allowed to charge. Seriously? I don't understand why they let companies walk all over them. If you're not making money, why do the job? I'd tell them if they don't like our prices they are more than welcome to have the customer come get the vehicle, or as is the case many of times, have the vehicle towed to wherever they want it fixed. I'm sorry but it's not worth the time involved to make 15% on parts.

[jdpetey]

HAHA! The transmission that was originally shipped in from an outside source was okay upon initial test drive BUT the customer took it home and came back the next day claiming it was 'noisy' or something to that effect.

Wondered why that truck was delivering another transmission that the Parts Dept wasn't going to touch.
Not that I care or know, but I hope the Service Dept is able to get the R&R for this BS.

[mightytitan9]

HAHA! The transmission that was originally shipped in from an outside source was okay upon initial test drive BUT the customer took it home and came back the next day claiming it was 'noisy' or something to that effect.

Wondered why that truck was delivering another transmission that the Parts Dept wasn't going to touch.
Not that I care or know, but I hope the Service Dept is able to get the R&R for this BS.

This is one of my largest problems with it, last time we had an engine brought in this way it was an aftermarket one that was missing several pieces and gaskets. We ended up making $27 for finding all the random pieces that were missing because they'd only pay 15% over cost. Next time I'm just telling them they're on their own and washing my hands of the sitution

[Richard]

They have no technicians or facilities to make repairs to THEIR clients vehicles.
Do I really feel that their clients are ours? Not exactly. We basically become their doormats.

Recently had ANOTHER transmission sent here to be installed with no parts involvement.
I see it as desperation on the Service Dept. to get labor, most likely at a discounted rate.

Is it entirely wrong for me to feel that the Service Dept. should get a spine and decline accepting THEIR TERMS?

The way I see it, 'tow your vehicle' TO YOUR SHOP and do those repairs at those rates! That's right, YOU DON'T HAVE ONE.

Let the customer call THEM and inquire as to why their vehicle isn't already repaired.

It's a tough slog at times nowadays with let alone the Manufacturers cutting labor times to only add insult to injury by these companies.

Please, someone enlighten me to the benefits of conducting business on behalf of these arseholes!

Mostly it's your service advisors screwing you, most likely with their bosses blessing. I went to the owner- now if any of these sleezy places wants to ship in a part, it's a $200 handling fee. They have 3 days once the repair is complete to claim any cores or old parts, afterwards they best go dumpster diving. The advisors ALWAYS get their labor, and now if they tell us they won't meet our parts price, they transfer the call to me. I offer a 10% discount, otherwise I have the authority to tell them they owe us x( up to $500) for diagnosis and teardown, and to tell the wrecker driver that's coming to take it elsewhere to bring cash or it won't be released. Most use their common sense at this point and concede the point to me.

[jdpetey]

Richard, I like your thinking and I feel we think along the same lines.

From my perspective, it's all about establishing firm policies. It's just a bitch when you've got all these pay plans with conflicting incentives. So much to a point that the advisors pay plans were changed to deter them from discounting parts by paying them on parts sales. Either it's changed since then or it's just not weighted as much as it needs to be.

It seems that a direct discussion with the Service Manager about this practice is in order.

I'm in a good position to bring this to the owner's attention, but I would like to give the Service Manager the opportunity to change course.

Gonna let it go this week as I'm goin' to Costa Rica. Got my flight info from Miami today.

Get this. On a chartered flight of GM employees with a Flight Number 666.

[Zep33]

Iron Maiden flight!!

[jdpetey]

Zep, one of my coworkers quickly pointed that out.

Saw them several times in the 80's.