Under Warranty-Dealer Blaming Customer and not paying? Read this

[strat61caster]

Originally Posted by mav1178

That's why I have been saying the same thing over and over again: you want the dealer to be on your side.

The LAST person you want to be against you is the dealer, because the management of the dealer owns the relationship with the regional and corporate reps at Subaru (or any other maker, for that matter), and those relationships come up important if you have a legitimate issue.

I don't understand this whole M-M Act + lawsuit mentality that people have and the internet stories that prop up this myth.

-alex

Originally Posted by mav1178

I wouldn't plead ignorance completely... but I often find it best to provide the dealer with a business case of why the warranty claim should be approved and why it's in their interest.

No threats about taking business elsewhere, but I lay out arguments as to why my claim is pretty much guaranteed work and why the dealer should support my position. What is implied is that the legitimate work can be taken to a more sympathetic dealer or someone who can see the cost/benefit of doing business with me.

-alex

I shouldn't have to show up with a 'business case' to have the dealership be on my side. I always feel like I'm on the defensive in those interactions so I'd rather avoid the interaction altogether.

I am not alone in this sentiment and that should be evidence enough that this relationship is not ideal, my experiences are not unique. Your resolve is stronger than mine, no argument.

It's kind of like calling up your ISP every year or two to get the lower introductory rate back, some people go "oh it's easy and so worth it" most people go "why don't they just make that rate standard instead of wasting a half hour of my time and a call center employees time?"

Praise be to Google Fiber.

Edit: Agreed, legal recourse should be a last course of action when arbitration reaches a stalemate.

[mav1178]

Originally Posted by strat61caster

I shouldn't have to show up with a 'business case' to have the dealership be on my side.

And completely agreed, the key part here is that we all have different approaches to tackling warranty and service issues, what should be avoided is the "nuclear option" which is a lawsuit.

-alex

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by mav1178

And completely agreed, the key part here is that we all have different approaches to tackling warranty and service issues, what should be avoided is the "nuclear option" which is a lawsuit.

-alex

And if you have to push that button then be prepared before you do! Make sure you are squeaky clean if they start digging, have all your evidence ready, you have kept good notes of the whos, whats and whens and don't lie to your legal team. They can not help you if you insist you did or didn't do something that you should have and you hide that from them.

[Dave-ROR]

Originally Posted by mav1178

I wouldn't plead ignorance completely... but I often find it best to provide the dealer with a business case of why the warranty claim should be approved and why it's in their interest.

No threats about taking business elsewhere, but I lay out arguments as to why my claim is pretty much guaranteed work and why the dealer should support my position. What is implied is that the legitimate work can be taken to a more sympathetic dealer or someone who can see the cost/benefit of doing business with me.

-alex

Agreed.


When my BRZ first popped a coil pack on track I had a salesman of said dealership there with his BRZ. We read the code, sent a screenshot to the service manager and it was scheduled for replacement a few minutes later.

If I break the car doing something that's not under warranty I have no problem fixing it, but with a proper dealership relationship often things that are outside of the scope of warranty work are covered. My BRZ saw a number of track days and only the coil pack failures are directly attributed to track use (although one could argue a design flaw as the heat kills them) I never had a single issue getting warranty work performed. The dealership staff and the regional rep all knew that the car was tracked. Honesty can get you pretty far in life. A lot further than trying to rip people/companies off.

[Hot-Lava_Dave]

Originally Posted by Braces

Sometimes the dealership is not in the loop to decide on a warranty claim. There is a separate individual that works outside of the dealership that decides.

This is literally my job! I work for an automotive supplier and analyze warranty returns from dealerships. I have to determine whether the part failure was due to "customer abuse", wear and tear, or maybe a design/manufacturing problem on our end. Most dealerships I have worked with love warranty work because more often than not repair costs are fronted by the manufacturer and supplier and the dealership gets paid for their trouble! I know my companies agreement with Toyota is a 60/40 split for warranty regardless of the cause.

[Braces]

Originally Posted by strat61caster

Subaru paid someone several thousands of dollars to go on record stating that a hard launch in a WRX is abusive.

My problem is that Subaru put effort into explicitly stating that something that thousands of people do every weekend (hard launch at an autocross, a type of event that Subaru sometimes sponsors) is outside the design use for their premier 'sport sedan'.

Agreed. What about launch control that is common on many high-end performance cars. The manufacturer is providing the steps for a computer assisted hard launch.

[Justin.b]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

I do not recall this ever being mentioned once in any of the threads where people were fighting for warranty. They all seem to go right from dealer, to Toyota Service, to lawyer. Why is this process not used?

It's like Tony Soprano sending you to speak to Pauly Walnuts. Toyota's not paying the 'independent' dispute settlement centers to find in favor of customers. If that were the case they'd save everyone's time and save themselves a good bit of money by just covering the warranty claim.

-Justin