Warranty worries

Dear Editor:

RE: What your mechanic wants you to know, March 19.

Having worked at a care dealership for almost 50 years, I had a inside view of how things worked in the automotive industry.

I retired eight months ago and can say I saw a lot of changes with both technology and policy.

The question of oil change interval has a somewhat dark background. To understand how things came to be we need to understand how the corporate world is set up.

There are three major groups: sales, engineers and accountants. The sales force will give the engineers direction on what the public wants and engineers design a vehicle based on that information. The accountants have the final say on what actually gets built.

Many large companies, cities and townships will ask automotive manufacturers for a quote for a large fleet purchase. This quote will also include the maintenance costs associated with the vehicles.

The bidding process is very competitive and as an example if GM’s quote for 500 vehicles is $500 less than Ford or Chrysler’s then the accountant on the purchasing side will buy GM, saving the city or township $500. One dollar per vehicle can make or break a sale when it comes to volume. This is where things get questionable.

With pressure from sales to reduce price the accountants will ask the engineers if removing something like the “grease fittings” will cause a problem “within the warranty period.” Their reply is no; however, those steering joints won’t last as long as ones with fittings.

Grease and the labour to install it costs money, so by removing the fittings they can reduce the bid price. The same logic applies to oil changes and other components: extend them a bit or remove them entirely and you have a few less maintenance intervals, again lowering the bid price.

Is it good for the vehicle?

Probably not, but as long as they get the sale and it makes it out of warranty is all that matters to them.

Dan Zabukovec,
Acton