Water leaks: Service Department or Body Shop?

[Doug]

Up here in the Norhtwest we have several months of heavy rain in the winter and we get tons of water leak complaints...sometimes 12-15 a week. For years our Service Department has been handling all these troublesome jobs but I'm insisting that our Body Shop help with some of this workload this winter. In my opinion, such work more closely resembles body-type repairs than mechanical repairs. The body shop manager is (no surprise here !) resisting the idea quite strongly. I'm not trying to dump the whole problem on him, just some of the cars to ease our workload a bit.

If your dealership has a body shop and plenty of water leak job I would like to hear how you distribute this type of work.

[lovemotors]

We keep the repairs in the Service Department unless we diagnois a body seam causing the leak.Then it goes to the body shop. It is possible to make very good money off of water leaks under warranty if you control the repair order properly. You need a well trained tech that can keep track of his time punches and write a great repair description also service management needs to be involved all the way.

[Michael White]

I agree with Lovemotors, water leaks are sometimes troublesome, and timely. But with a properly trained tech and near perfect documentation, water leaks are money makers. It is unfortunate GM is already preparing us for water leak cars for this winter. However, I would be glad to send all sunfire convertables to the body shop, but they do not want them.
Mike