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Warranty - when are techs responsible?

Gerald Martin
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Gerald Martin Rookie

Gerald Martin

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No one loves comebacks.  But they are a part of life.  They come in all shapes and sizes:

1.  Faulty parts.  We have more part quality issues than ever before, including (less frequently) OEM parts.

2.  Tech error.   A tech fails to properly tighten brake caliper frame bolts.  A belt is installed with one groove off the edge of a pulley.  Some techs rarely make these errors.  But mistakes will happen.

3.  Warning lights on or new symptoms noted "ever since you worked on it".   Always needs to be taken seriously - sometimes issues identified are fall into category 1 or 2.  Or further OBD monitors ran since repairs were made and other issues are coming out of the woodwork.  And sometimes people will try to pin every new issue on the shop that last worked on the car.

 

How do we deal with warranty cases?   

When tech error is involved, is the employer responsible to pay the tech's time to correct his own mistake?  Does it make a difference if there is a pattern of carelessness?  If the employer picks up the tab for everything, doesn't this reward the making of mistakes?

It seems reasonable that the tech should not take responsibility for part failures not caused by tech error, doesn't it?

And what about that follow up scan to see why the warning lights are on?  Should the tech handle this as a courtesy until determined what area the fault is in?  It may be, after all, that he left a vacuum line off the air cleaner box.  But it shouldn't take too long to know if the advisor needs to request more testing approval from the client...

 

And should any of these questions be influenced by whether the shop pays flat rate or hourly?

I know that's a lot of questions.  But I hope it starts a conversation, because it's an area we really need to develop an SOP and stick with it.

 

Gerald

 

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bantar Community Regular

bantar

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On 12/8/2023 at 8:33 PM, Gerald Martin said:

How do we deal with warranty cases?   

When tech error is involved, is the employer responsible to pay the tech's time to correct his own mistake?  Does it make a difference if there is a pattern of carelessness?  If the employer picks up the tab for everything, doesn't this reward the making of mistakes?

It seems reasonable that the tech should not take responsibility for part failures not caused by tech error, doesn't it?

And what about that follow up scan to see why the warning lights are on?  Should the tech handle this as a courtesy until determined what area the fault is in?  It may be, after all, that he left a vacuum line off the air cleaner box.  But it shouldn't take too long to know if the advisor needs to request more testing approval from the client...

The business owns full responsibility for tech errors.   At best, you dismiss the employee if the errors are too much or egregious.   I've had people offer to pay for their own mistakes, but I refuse this.   Council them and move on.

CEL on after repair:   I want my techs to dig in and at least get a head-start on the fault.   If there is something new, we need to bill for "peeling the onion" and finding a new problem.   If it's our fault, back to previous statement above.  I pay hourly + flag bonus.  I don't dock flag hours for them taking more time.   We hope for more wins than losses in the shop as a whole and per tech.  If the tech is not a consistent winner, well now.... (I just let a non-winner go 2 weeks ago).    If we have a new problem, we go back for more time.  

Accurately billing customers for time has been the hardest problem for me to solve.   I have one tech that always wants to "know" what is happening, regardless of whether we're getting paid.  Just this morning, I was thinking that I'll adjust his flag bonus up (to give him a COL raise) and remind him that he gets paid more when we get paid more!    We'll see if it helps.

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