Those of you who know me know that I value all the different facets of our industry working together. We get more done when we work together. We also get more done when we each do our jobs while keeping in mind that we all have the same boss – the owner of the car we ultimately provide our product or service to.
But even my desire to work together has to take a back seat when an issue comes up in our not-so-little village that just rubs me wrong.
It has been said clichés exist because they are fundamentally true. One of my favorites is: “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” To paraphrase outside of the cliché; if something goes wrong figure out a way to make it right or use it to your advantage.
I think most of us would agree that from a business or personal perspective this view is sound and beats the heck out of outright failure. But sometimes failure is just failure and if lemonade comes from it there is a pretty good chance it is going to taste bad to someone else involved in the equation.
A few weeks ago an industry trade mag had a headline that read: “Recall Windfall.”
I did not need to read the article to know this lemonade was going to be bitter. I read it anyway and found just what I expected. The article was written upside down in my opinion. The author started by telling his readers that, “… a record barrage of safety recalls is a startling, confusing, aggravating, logistical headache.”
He then switched to the silver lining or the part that leaves a bad taste in your mouth depending on your point of view. The article goes on to say, “As millions of customers pull into service lanes for recall fixes, service advisers will get the chance to sell, say, new brake rotors to a customer waiting on a replacement seat-belt cable or steering column.” At this point I could begin a diatribe but I want to analyze this poorly chosen comment for the real world reality that it is.
This writer does not work for the manufacturer or dealers but he points out an interesting component of the recall process – the reward. For years some manufacturers have avoided recalls by extending bumper-to-bumper warranties. Rather than fixing the part that failed at an abnormally high rate they would negotiate with the government to simply extend the warranty and reward themselves with a higher rate of service repair work to the dealer network. But did the customer get made whole?
The problem I have with this particular situation is that many of these repairs are safety related and over the last few years several manufacturers have been caught hiding the problem. It seems like if the repair involved is this flavor the customer should receive the repair without attempt to upsell other work – unless it also is safety related.
The customer should be repaired and allowed to drive away. The idea of generating revenue off of a bad faith situation exacerbates the problem and would leave a bad taste in my mouth if I were a customer.
I also read that an OE was recently fined for having made a mistake in the powertrain control module software that caused it to not speak correctly to the emissions testing equipment. What was the remedy? The article made no mention of the OE being asked to resolve the problem with a software update, though I can only guess that to be true.
The fine was several million dollars and here come the lemons again. Did that money get divided up between those vehicle owners as some kind of restitution for being inconvenienced during a smog check? No, the folks who bought the cars most likely have to take the car back to the dealer for a software update and deal with the hassle of being out of their vehicle and getting rides to work. The fine money is being used to pay for retrofits of engine management systems for trucks that are old and not in compliance with emissions.
I have a more elegant and appropriate solution to this problem. Instead of giving benefit to those who were never part of the ownership cycle of the vehicle to begin with, how about putting reprogramming software at the smog stations and reimbursing the smog station each time one of those vehicles rolled in and needed a software update to communicate with the equipment?
The reason I can’t write a diatribe is it’s pretty hard to figure out whom to direct it toward. The system is broken. I can’t blame the manufacturer because they are making the best of a situation based upon a set of rules that is flawed. I can’t blame the dealer because they have to not only repair the recall problems but they are also likely to take a hit in the showroom. After all is said and done it comes down to a few individuals who applied the lemon cliché and demonstrated poor taste.
Subscribe to Aftermarket Business World and receive articles like this every month….absolutely free. Click here.
