Fixed Ops Journal - June 2021 - F26

FIXED OPS JOURNAL
FIXED IN TIME
1939
During the 1939-40 New York World's Fair, Ford Motor Co.
spent more than $5 million on an elaborate exposition
space that featured displays and manufacturing
presentations. One exhibit showed a dealership service
department and included modern equipment
demonstrations and Q&A sessions with technicians. The
vehicle on the left is undergoing an alignment test, and
the one on the right is having a brake adjustment. Ford
arranged the exhibit to show dealers an effi cient
utilization of fl oor space believed to result in better
customer service.
Photo courtesy of the Collections of The Henry Ford.
Gift of Ford Motor Co.
 We encourage you to submit photos for Fixed In
Time. Send images to foj@autonews.com.
In-person audits can make it easier to get answers
JIM HENRY
foj@autonews.com
W
hether a warranty audit is conducted
in person or remotely
can make a big diff erence. Th at's
why the return of face-to-face
audits is a big deal, according to dealership
consultants and other experts.
Automakers dialed back warranty auditing
during COVID-19 shutdowns , and reportedly
stopped doing in-person warranty audits entirely,
for several months last year. In some
cases, in-person warranty audits are only now
about to start back up.
Despite many dealership records being entered
online, dealership service and parts departments
and the warranty claims process
are still very paper-intensive, says Rich Reinicke,
president of Warranty Management
Consulting in Littleton, Colo. And online records
are no substitute for the paper originals.
" Auditors
are going to want to see the comments,
see the notes in the margin, see the time
punches, compare those with the time sheets,
compare those with other repairs, " he says.
Being on-site as opposed to remote makes it
easier to get answers that may be hard to fi nd
Reinicke: Auditors
want to see notes.
based strictly on the documents,
experts say.
" If you have a question,
you can walk over and talk
to a parts person, " says
Rob Gehring, president of
Fixed Performance Inc. in
Huron, Ohio.
Auditors are looking for
" no-no s, " such as the same
technician punching the
clock for multiple jobs at
the same time or charging an impossible number
of hours in a given time frame. A dealer client
of Reinicke once got charged back because
an auditor discovered somebody other than the
assigned technician had added more details to
a repair order after the fact, based on diff erent
handwriting, he says.
Here are some details from Ford Motor Co.
and General Motors regarding in-person and
remote warranty audits.
GM
 GM says it has the ability to conduct warranty
audits electronically, without dealership
visits, but in a normal year employs in-person
audits.
 During the worst of COVID-19 shutdowns
last year, GM suspended all dealer warranty
audits and deferred any pending audit
charges for several months. It redesigned best
practices training materials and implemented
a compliance credit for dealers who took the
training.
 GM says it " essentially stopped all audits
that led to debits through Q3 of last year. "
 Th e company resumed electronic audits in
the fourth quarter of 2020 and expects to restart
in-person audits in the third quarter of
this year.
Ford
 Ford suspended warranty audits in March
2020 and restarted them in March 2021. Th e
automaker says it is not looking to increase
the number of audits this year compared with
pre-pandemic years.
 During COVID-19 shutdowns, Ford worked
with dealerships online to review their dashboard
metrics without imposing any " disallowances, "
i.e., chargebacks.
 Online training materials are available to
help dealerships prepare for warranty audits,
such as a self-analysis and monthly warranty
webcasts. 
PAGE 26 JUNE 2021
Fixed Ops Journal - June 2021

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