why do dealers turn down warranty service?

[joelek]

Originally Posted by bikendan

dealers get paid by the MANUFACTURER, whether they are the original selling dealer or not, for doing warranty work. has nothing to do with who sold it.

Hey it was just a guess on my part. If I'm wrong, I'm ok with that. So what is your answer (or guess) to why so many dealers refuse to do warranty repair for customers that did not buy the RV from them? That is what this thread is about and so far, no real answer yet. Just guesses and theories. It's obviously something that is frustrating and negative for RV owners.

[bikendan]

the reason i've read on most RV forums, is that the manufacturers don't pay the same shop rate as the dealers charge their customers.
so, they make more money doing non-warranty work, over warranty work.
and they will do warranty work for units they sold, to keep their own customers happy and they've also made money on them, from the sale.

so, doing the lower paying warranty work, on rigs they didn't make any money from a sale, is just not worth the bother for many RV dealers.
and the manufacturers can't force them to do it either.

[joelek]

Thanks Dan. That answer makes absolute sense to me as it also exists in the motorcycle industry. It's simply a suppy and demand thing. The dealers have too much repair business so they can pick and choose what jobs they don't want to work on.

It's so bad in the motorcycle repair business that some Harley dealers sell prioritiy service contracts to motorcycle owners. Basically you pay money to get to the head of the class. Riding season (like camping) is short in the snowbelt so people don't want the down time of waiting for a repair shop to fix their bike. So they pay a dealer extra money up front to get priority service when they need it.

[trudinator]

Simple answer to the OP's question - BECAUSE THEY CAN! The RV manufacturers have allowed this to happen. If you give dealers a choice, there are a majority of them who are going to take whatever deal makes them the most money, because let's face it, they're in the business to make money! When we shopped our our TT, we asked a few dealers at a show if they would service our TT if we bought from RVW. The answer was usually, "well, we'd service the people who bought from us first, and then put you at the bottom of the list." We didn't buy from RVW because a local dealer beat their price by $1K. But when warranty issues have taken over a year, I called another local dealer who deals with a different FR brand and they said they'd welcome my warranty work with open arms. Frankly, if I were in the biz, I'd welcome ANY business, because maybe, just maybe, those people would be back to buy their camper from ME next time.

[redfinaddict]

Originally Posted by trudinator

Simple answer to the OP's question - BECAUSE THEY CAN! The RV manufacturers have allowed this to happen. If you give dealers a choice, there are a majority of them who are going to take whatever deal makes them the most money, because let's face it, they're in the business to make money! When we shopped our our TT, we asked a few dealers at a show if they would service our TT if we bought from RVW. The answer was usually, "well, we'd service the people who bought from us first, and then put you at the bottom of the list." We didn't buy from RVW because a local dealer beat their price by $1K. But when warranty issues have taken over a year, I called another local dealer who deals with a different FR brand and they said they'd welcome my warranty work with open arms. Frankly, if I were in the biz, I'd welcome ANY business, because maybe, just maybe, those people would be back to buy their camper from ME next time.

Just to add to this maybe when that same RV is no longer under warranty and needs repairs, because I was so impressed by their service while under warranty I will bring it back to them.

[ttaylor]

I've been outa town and just got an email that I had a reply to my post!
I'm sorry I did not view my post as being a wise guy.
I was just posting my experience on the same subject.
I mean no offense to anyone.
I'll step aside and just read others post occasionally, maybe.
ttaylor

[joelek]

I'm kind of a wiseguy and a dumbass all in the same body. Keeps ya guessing what I'm all about.

Facts are facts. The dealers do it cause they can and like I said before it's a supply and demand thing. Some RV dealers have more service business than they can handle so they turn away the lower hourly rate of reimbursed by factory warranty work. Their non warranty work is billed at a higher hourly rate so they get more money and that's the type of work they want to keep.

HOWEVER, Pay attention to this example spreadsheet I made for all you guys to chew on.



This spreadsheet shows an example of a service bill that has 8 hours of labor and $500 bucks in parts. The items in yellow are hourly billing rate, and the additional money the dealer would make at the increasingly more expensive service rate.

Soooooo, lets pretend that warranty work got reimbursed from factory at $60/hour. The same job NOT done as warranty work at a shop rate of $100/hour would net the dealer an additional $320 bucks on ONE job. This is why some dealers don't want to do warranty work for a customer that did not buy their RV from them.

OK so the dealer made and extra 320 bucks on an existing customer. But they lost a NEW customer because they did not do warranty work for a guy that broke down with a new RV. Do you know how long it takes a guy with a brand new RV to blow 320 bucks on parts, accessories, upgrade, etc? About 60 seconds when he looks at the parts/accessories store or the big fact catalog of goodies for RVs.

Sooooo, lesson is the guy that got turned away for warranty work is not going to buy any future service, future parts, or future upgrades. He sure as heck isn't going to buy a new RV down the road from that dealer. And 100% no friggin way is he gonna tell his buddies to give that dealer any business.

This is the catch 22 dealers have to put up with. Make sure fire money now, or possibly make alot more money later.

[MilCop4523]

I worked at a GM dealer for years before I went into Policing.
GM pays warranty work done at a lower rate, and whats worse the dealer looses certain incentive programs - perks we'll call them - if they happen to have more than the usual numbers of warranty claims with the Parent Company.
Limiting who they do work for restricts that number.
Right now I am fighting with FR who states they are trynig to get my slide out rubb through the paint and into the siding looked at by a FR dealer locally in the State of Maine. When I call the Warranty guy for Salem he continues to tell me the contact at the RV delaer is not in. Now a month - someone sure has had a good vacation if he is never in and doesn't return calls. If that was the case I wouldn't want to buy a NEW TT from them since you woiuld never get a return call on a problem most likely in that situation either.

[jeeplj8]

Ironically, I think this truly hurts dealers. I figure there are around 50-75 dealers with in an 8 hour drive off me, 30-40 within 4 hours, which is not too bad. Almost all carry Forest River (with 97 odd brands/makes, how could they not?).

I have already crossed 5 local dealers off the list of places I would buy from because of their service reputation. I simply will not purchase from them because I might have to take it back to them for warranty work.

That is at least one guaranteed lost sale (going to buy something this fall, not sure what yet.)

[notaz3]

It's not just an RV issue. Same with boat waranty work.

Why should a dealer feel obligated to take your waranty work in at a lower rate then he would charge for out of waranty repair? If you had bought the RV from them they could still refuse the waranty work. The differance is with a customer that has bought from them they have a desire to keep that cusomer happy. You have already proven that you will purchase from another dealer, so it's rightfull to think that your next upgrade/replacement will not be with the local dealer.

All that said though, Sounds like your local dealer has more work then they can handel, or they would have taken your work as a lower priority.