mark1228 wrote: This is a hot topic in the RV industry, as it should be. It will continue until the RV MANUFACTURER pays the dealer for the work they perform plain and simple. I am the GM of an RV dealership. I don't refuse to do warranty work to customers that purchase out of town because I am mad at them, I do it because we don't get paid for what we do. You can blame dealers all you want, but the retail owners of RV's have to start putting pressure on the manufacturer's to have this changed.
Mark, I'm not picking on you or lamb basting dealers, so don't take my following questions the wrong way. I'm just trying to make some sense of this business model. Being in the industry you are the right guy to ask.
By "not being paid", are you saying that the unit's manufacturer doesn't compensate you for warranty repairs or they don't compensate you enough to recoup your costs? Would you sell on the Internet where you might attract customers from out of town, knowing they will not be coming back? If so, what would you tell such a buyer knowing they would not be back, that there is no manufacturer's warranty or there is?
As an added thought, what happens when I buy a TT in New York and move across the country to California and need warranty work? Go back to New York? That just seems odd to me...
Thanks...
Michael, Kay and Hans (our Mini-Schnauzer co-pilot)
'05 Coachmen SportsCoach SE 372DS a.k.a. "Mana's Cabana"
I agree with the dealer. It's tough enough to make a living. No reason to lose money on disloyal customers. I'm fortunate enough in my business that when a customer leaves, they're done. I don't take them back.
Well you are wrong and you don't know what you are talking about. I am glad you say you are outta there, because I used to get tired of escorting people off of the property.
I knew it! You used to be a mall cop right?
I remember you. You're the troll from the beach closure thread.
mark1228 wrote: This is a hot topic in the RV industry, as it should be. It will continue until the RV MANUFACTURER pays the dealer for the work they perform plain and simple. I am the GM of an RV dealership. I don't refuse to do warranty work to customers that purchase out of town because I am mad at them, I do it because we don't get paid for what we do. You can blame dealers all you want, but the retail owners of RV's have to start putting pressure on the manufacturer's to have this changed.
Mark, I'm not picking on you or lamb basting dealers, so don't take my following questions the wrong way. I'm just trying to make some sense of this business model. Being in the industry you are the right guy to ask. There is a contract involved in being a dealership for a company. This contract should take into account warranty work. And I am sure it does. It's between the dealer and the manufacturer! Carry the manufacturers product and take on the manufacturers warranty work for X amount of dollars.
By "not being paid", are you saying that the unit's manufacturer doesn't compensate you for warranty repairs or they don't compensate you enough to recoup your costs? Would you sell on the Internet where you might attract customers from out of town, knowing they will not be coming back? If so, what would you tell such a buyer knowing they would not be back, that there is no manufacturer's warranty or there is?
As an added thought, what happens when I buy a TT in New York and move across the country to California and need warranty work? Go back to New York? That just seems odd to me...
Thanks...
There is a contract between a dealership and a manufacturer. This contract should take into account warranty work on the manufacturers product no matter who sells it. Infact it is usually addressed in the warranty papers given to the customer. If a dealership fails to honor the contract by not doing warranty work called for by the contract, it is known as a tort, and is addressable in a court of law. Same for the manufacturer.
* This post was
edited 05/02/08 05:53pm by wny_pat *
Texasbaskets- No offense taken. Warranty compensation varies from company to company, but in general they do not reimburse us for what we do. Let me put is this way- any decent RV service shop should have a backlog of work to do. Our choice is to do work for a non warranty customer that pays our normal shop labor rate and any parts we use get a markup of 30%-40%. When we complete the job, the customer pays us and takes his RV home. Or we can do a warranty job with the same time and mechanic. We do the job and we might be working for a manufacturer that does pay our normal shop rate. We do the job and use some parts and if it is a generous manufacturer we might make 10% on the parts(by the way, I have to order and PAY the manufacturer for those parts in most cases). Then, at my expense, I pay an employee to box up and ship back the old parts(I do get paid for the shipping charge but not my time), and I pay another employee to fill out the warranty claim form or possibly enter it online, at my expense. After that is all done, I wait for a month or two to get a check back from the manufacturer and that's when I find out what I am paid to do that job. They may decide it took us to long or that it was not a warranty item and dock us for our time and I finally get my money back that I paid a couple of months ago for the parts. I have one manufacturer that will dock my time on about 60% of the warranty claims I file with them. Now you will ask, why sell that brand? Because they are very popular in our market and if we sell it, it is worth eating some warranty on it, even though we should not have too. Dealers, nor RV owners, should have to pay to fix a new RV that should have left the factory right to begin with, regardless or where the customer purchased it.
As for your other questions, we have an active website that generates lots of new RV sales for us. We do ask the new owner to come to our store to pick up the RV(we don't just hook it up to a shipper and send across the country) because we want to do a good walk through and customer orientation. We prefer the new owner to spend a night or two around our area in case there are any problems. As for warranty work, we inform our customer that other dealers CAN do the work, but may choose not too. That way they are not angry with us if and when they are refused warranty work. About 55% of our annual sales are to customer outside of our county, so this is a common question for us. As for your last question, I assume you mean that if you purchased the TT while living in NY and then moved to another area. We just had that happen here where a customer moved to our town from out of state with a 5th wheel brand that we handle. He needed some warranty work and we are taking care of him. It just varies from dealer to dealer, but I agree, you should not have to take it back. Sorry to be so long, but this issue is important to me. I believe that as we are an industry that is all about travel, we as an industry need to have a good service network out there to give the RV owners as good of an experience as possible while traveling or otherwise. I agree that as a dealer, just refusing to do the work and having an attitude is a great way to lose future business for the dealer, but also for the entire industry. My goal on here is to encourage the RV owners to start emailing the RV manufacturers and communicating to them their feelings as they are ultimately responsible for their warranty
I am sorry, but you are incorrect. I am a dealer for Keystone, Forest River, Coachmen, Northwood and Rage'n. With those company's, I only have one written contract and that is with Coachmen. If the RV industry had franchise agreements, you may be right, but the RV business is based on dealers, not franchises. I might add that the reason that there are not more written agreements is the manufacturers don't want them. The RVDA(national RV dealers association) has been pushing for written dealer agreements and even those have been hard to get.
Mark1228,
It is only good business practice to have some type of agreement between you and those you do business with. Kind of like, you don't by real property with out a lawyer to investigate the liabilities of the property and it's previous owners concerning the property. You could end up with a meaningless title if you didn't use a lawyer.
And are you saying that Keystone, Forest River, Northwood and Rage'n do not give written warranties when someone buys their product? Or if they do, no body has to honor them?
Medfly wrote: So now I guess I will have to find a dealer that will accept my TT warranty work or drive all the way to where I purchased it from. There is alot more they said and why they won't accept my TT's warranty work, but how disappointing is that!
Its very disappointing as i also ran into this here in VA,infact the owner was rude in his reply.
I have bought several TT's since then all of which he carries on his lot but naturally i choose to drive a little farther for friendly service and have steered potential buyers away from his place of business.
People want to compare the automotive industry and the RV industry. The RV industry is practically "mom and pop" compared to automotive. More cars and light trucks are sold in ten days in this country than RV's are sold in a year. While auto manufacturers practically demand exclusive facilities today, no RV manufacturer can make those demands because a dealer can't exist carrying a single line of product.
As a result any agreement between the dealer and the manufacturer is much less formal in most all cases. This complicates an RV dealer's service and training because of multiple brands sold and ability to stock parts. RV manufacturers have far fewer resources to offer the dealer and often cut corners anywhere they can. One would be naive to assume that any amount of litigation could "force" any RV dealer to service any one unit if he chooses not to. It would be even more naive to think you would receive adequate service from a dealer you "forced" to work on your unit. Timeliness and quality of repair is a very subjective thing and means far different things to a consumer than it might to a repair station.
It seems that customers who have to buy away from home to save three or four thousand dollars know much more about how the RV business should be run than dealers with hundreds of thousands of dollars tied up in inventory and real estate.
Perhaps the customers should all become dealers and do things right.
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