Tech pay for NPF

[djs]

My service manager started paying the techs some time when they work on a vehicle and cannot duplicate the problem. For example on a loose gas cap on a vehicle still under warranty. He says you cannot submit a warranty claim, he feels the customer would rebel if we charged them, so he pays them to keep the peace. I struggle with paying someone to check things when I am not being paid at the service department level. Any thoughts?

[btk]

I think that if you cant get reimbursed through warranty-I agree with your service manager not to charge tthe customer. I typically will not pay for could not duplicate type of jobs-but there are exceptions to that rule. I think you have to look at a few factors, productivity of the shop, the car line. For instance, in our Honda shop-we stand pretty firm on the rule, but in VW it is alot harder to produce hours and we are more inclined to pay the techs depending on the scenario.

[Old Irish]

This is always a tough one.

Speaking in broad terms I think the techs really need to be paid for their time. The fact that service department cannot actually *bill out* any labor is really not the technicians' problem, is it ??

If you have a really productive shop and techs are well over 100%, I'd have no problem with expecting them to "cover" the easier "no problem found" cases on their own....and most will without any problem.

If the shop is slow and they are having a hard time even getting 8 hours for the day then its pretty hard asking them to do somthing for free. Of course, I get lots of flak for being a big 'ol softie about this sort of thing

A lot depends on how much time is spent. There's a big difference in asking a tech to spend 10-12 minutes on a car ---- for free ---and asking him to spend 30-40 minutes on a car.

In most cases I'd rather cover some time for them...rather than have them "blow out" a car without really going through the correct steps, on account of being afraid they won't get paid for their time.

Cheers
DD

[dhoyt1]

Depending on the Vehicle Warranty, most can be paid once as a good will, if not just the Scan test. If you have a repeat customer specifically with a fuel cap loose, it would be wise to advise the customer on what their warranty will not pay. Most techs will let it go not paid if they are only into it .3 hrs or less depending on there average hours. If you have enough room in your service policy that can be a way to handle it and only bill it out at cost, that way the tech will get paid for time. Hope this helps.
dhoyt