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says. The appointed team member managing
warranties for a given location can go to one
computer application to file warranty claims for
various companies. Of this in-house tracking
system, "it connects to all of them through an
electronic interface," he adds.
Daimler recently launched One-Stop Warranty,
which allows warranty claims for both the OE
base warranty as well as participating OE supplier warranties to be filed and managed on one
portal through the dealer. One-Stop Warranty is
monitored through the Daimler Online Warranty
Link (OWL).
"Prior to One-Stop, customers were simply
charged for the repair, or if the dealer wanted to
file a claim to a particular supplier, [the dealer]
reimbursed the customer when [the dealer was]
reimbursed," notes David Dole, Director, Customer
Service & Warranty for Daimler Trucks North
America. "DTNA provides exactly what the supplier is covering during their extension so there is
no question what should be filed through OWL
and what is the customer portion, if any. DTNA
simply passes the One-Stop claims to the supplier
for reimbursement."
This means that with a vehicle under warranty - regardless of base OE warranty or a warranty covered by the OE supplier - the claim would
be filed through OWL at the dealership or the
fleet, and the fleet would receive reimbursement
for the claim when it is filed. Daimler would
then work on the back end internally, with
their OE partners, to manage the filing process.
"The entire DTNA network can file for One-Stop
claims, and fleets can file for them too," Dole
adds. One-Stop Warranty allows users to file
claims with six different suppliers currently,
with plans to add more suppliers by the end
of 2020.

Finding the value

Fleets can handle their own warranty work
in-house by having technicians certified to manage
the work, working with a third-party vendor such
as an independent maintenance contractor or going
directly through the dealership.
"If it is an OEM-based warranty or an extended
component warranty, those repairs typically end
up at a dealer," Trimble's Walters says. "And the
reason for that is that there's no investment in
stocking parts in an inventory to do those types
of repairs. Most fleets will outsource OEM-based
warranty and extended component warranty to
the dealer that's providing the warranty coverage
on that component on the vehicle."
Penske's Rosa confirms their organization uses a
combination of services to manage warranty work.
"Some of it is done at [the] dealer, some of it is
done in-house, some of it is done by another provider that could be deemed by the component provider
or the OEM," he says. "We actually have all three
happening, depending upon what the issue is."
While many of these warranty claims are
handled through a dealership, it can be difficult
to quantify the value of that warranty to the fleet,
Walters explains.
"The dilemma is that if a dealer performs a
warranty, the invoice that comes back has no
cost associated with it," Walters says of warranty claims handled at a dealership. This is why,
he suggests, fleets still request details on what
the dealer billed the OEM for the parts and
service, even though that cost isn't passed along
to the fleet.
"It's always a struggle of how does the fleet
identify the savings," Walters explains. "There was
cost, but there was no cost to the fleet. Our system
gives you the ability to input the detail, and we
can assign a cost to those details so that when we

run unit lifecycle cost reports on an asset, we can
look at warranty as a component of that."
This cost information can then be added to the
asset tracking software to calculate the value of
the warranty and the number of warranty dollars
recovered for each asset.
Having this cost information can provide a
full picture of the recovered warranty costs for a
fleet. Walter suggests, as a benchmark for a fleet
managing assets with a four- to seven-year lifecycle, warranty claims should make up 5 to 8 percent
of the total maintenance spend for a fleet.
"That's what you should be recovering on an
annual basis from warranty claims," he notes.
Where are fleets missing the most of these
recovery dollars? Aftermarket warranty recovery, Walters says.
"Rarely do people miss the major components -
the engines, the transmissions, the drivetrains," he
says. "Most fleets are really good at catching those
major repairs. What they miss is [the] aftermarket
parts warranty, which is a huge opportunity that
we're seeing nowadays. A lot of the systems on
assets today have long-term warranties."
He provides LED bulbs as an example, which
are often replaced but many times come with an
unlimited lifetime warranty.
"We should never be buying and paying for
replacement bulbs because the original bulb has
a lifetime warranty," Walters says. "Aftermarket
parts warranty identification eliminates and
recovers those dollars back to the fleet."
Aftermarket warranty claims are even more
integral to smaller fleets, or fleets maintaining
vehicles on an extended trade cycle, since those
fleets more often use aftermarket parts.
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Fleet Maintenance

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