whitenblue65

Long story, but I am looking to get every angle for arguing my case to a dealer to work on my modded car to replace my blown transfer case. I was wondering who pays for the warranty work, is it the dealership doing the work also paying for it,is paying for it, or do they share the cost?

whitenblue65

**sorry, title is supposed to be "who pays for warranty work"

GHEvo8

iTrader: (5)

a dealership is allowed so much monney a month in warantee work, if they go over that then its out of there pocket, your best bet is to go at the begining of the month

dubbleugly01

iTrader: (24)

warranty work is paid by mitsu to the local dealer. The issue is, mitsu lowballs the hours, as do all manufacturers, so that there is no money to be made by the dealership. For instance, to replace the t-case, mitsu will pay the dealership for 2hrs. of mechanics time. The mechanic needs 4 to do the job (these are fictitous numbers), he gets paid by the hour by the dealership, so the dealership actually loses money on warranty work in most cases. There's no incentive for the dealership to do warranty work, it's just the opposite.

TempeRacerGuy

iTrader: (9)

So NOT TRUE. Dealerships get paid flat time to do waranty work. for example, the book says it's a 4 hour job, they get paid 4 hours. However good mechanics can beat flat rate by 25-50% or more depending on how many time's they've done it before. with repeated problems with the same car, mechanics get VERY good at doing a specific job.

The problem is, if the regional service manager starts seeing a dealership with a high waranty repair pay-outs, he will start to watch that dealership very closely. So, dealerships do everything they can to not get watched. This means, that they either try to convince you that you have to pay for it, or they defer it to the regional service manager.

This happened to me on my Supra TT when the Getrag tranny blew 2nd gear. Dealership denied the claim. Regional rep said my powertrain waranty was voided due to "excessive modification"... when I called Toyota corporate, they said that the rep found a boost controller, and took pictures of it, my car, and my VIN. (it was my turbo timer, there was no boost controller on the car). I then sent them a certified letter with a picture of the turbo timer, an advertizement of the turbo timer with a picture and description of the function. and a note saying that if I didn't have my car repaired within a week, that I would sue them for violation of Magnesson Moss warranty claims act.

I recieved a call from my service advisor "Mr Tracy, I've never seen this before, and I don't know who you talked to, but Corporate reversed the waranty decision, is Fed-Exing a transmission from Germany, and your car will be ready in 3 days... they also have authorized a rental car. When would you like to pick that up?"

Know your rights, follow your beliefs, don't get emotional, state facts, names, and dates. If you're in the right, you will get what you want.

Now, if you are boosting high, or adding tons of stress to the driveline... well then you're screwed.

dubbleugly01

iTrader: (24)

everything I said is ABSOLUTELY true. Your response has little to do with the original question. The "book" says what amount of time the manufacturer will pay the dealership for the job, but the mechanic at the dealership will STRUGGLE to get the job done in that alloted time, and WILL take short cuts. The manufacturer pays the dealership for warranty work, this is not debatable. The dealership pays the mechanic for the work he performs. This is not debatable. If the mechanic takes longer to perform the job than the "book" says, the dealership loses money.

Now if the mechanic is good, and can do the job quickly due to experience, then he's "dubbe'd" MASTER MECHANIC, and draws a higher pay rate, which the dealership has to pay, not the manufacturer, and the dealership will still lose money on most warranty work. Beating the book by 25-50% is rediculous, it doesn't happen.

Warrtalon

iTrader: (6)

It definitely does happen, dubbleugly. The "book" says 10 hours for a clutch job. I know some speed shops that do it in 2 hours, so I have no doubt that plenty of Mitsu mechanics can do it in 5 hours. 5 hours is beating the "book" by 50%.

As for the OP, the t-case doesn't just break itself. It's caused by the driver, and the fact you have an aftermarket clutch is going to make it extremely difficult to get Mitsu to cover it. On a big dollar job like that, the regional rep is going to want to see the car or details about the car, and when he sees that it's modded and has an aftermarket clutch, you'll be screwed. Also, if you have them take it apart under the pretense that they MAY provide warranty coverage if they find no evidence of driver error, then when they get in and find hot spots on the clutch/flywheel or busted teeth in the t-case, they'll then tell you "no luck," and you'll have to pay them full price for all the labor of taking it apart, replacing the t-case, and putting it all back together.

SaOrlando

iTrader: (7)

i personally deal with service and parts departments in my industry.

these are general statements about the innerworking of warranty parts/labor, this is not specific to mitsubishi

the first thing is there is a negotiated rate between mitsubishi and the dealership.
if you pay 100 an hour. mitsu might pay 60(i am estimating)
the service managers job is to make money for the dealership. the mitsu reps job is to save mitsubishis money. they are both on the side of you paying for it. if you have to pay 1000 dollars in labor, that is alot more than 600. as well, depending on the manufacturer. the parts are resold to mitsubishi from 0 to 40 percent markup of cost. you pay more than mitsu does. as well, the claim can be rejected by mitsubishi upon inspection of the "defective" part.

although i am sure it does happen out of defect in a few cases, maybe yours is one of them.
the dealership does not want anything to do with accepting that warranty claim.

dubbleugly01

iTrader: (24)

If you say the "book" says 10 hrs for a evo clutch, I can't argue, I don't have a clue with the mitsu book says for that job. But I know I can do it in about 12 hrs by myself on my back with jackstands, so yes, it's reasonable to expect a mitsu mechanic to be able to do it quicker. But 5 hrs. imo is pushing the limit. I wouldn't understand mitsu's logic for over-inflating the hours necessary for warranty work. All that does is put money into the privately owned dealerships hands at the expense of Mitsu Motors North America. They are just coming out of bankruptcy, I can't imagine they would intentionally do this.

The shops that do it in 2 hrs, how many mechanics do they have working on the car? If it's more than one, obviously, you'll need to add the hours for each mechanic.

Regardless of Mitsu in particular, I know a master mechanic at Ford, Mazda, and a couple at Toyota (no, I don't know any Mitsu master mechanics), and the general theme I hear from them is there is no money to be made on warranty work. When a drive in customer rolls in for non-warranty work, the dealership charges the customer an amount MORE than the auto manufacturer would have given the dealership for the same work under warranty. Hence, the dealership (and mechanic) make less off warranty work vs. non warranty work. So if the "book" says 10 hrs for a clutch on an evo, I'd be willing to bet that dealership would charge a walk-in customer 12 hrs. labor for that same clutch. So it's not in the dealerships best interest to warranty items they could otherwise charge full rate for.

Warrtalon

iTrader: (6)

5 is not pushing it. Most shops do it in that amount of time without trying hard.

I know it's 10 hours, because that's what Mitsu told me when I first took my car in at 7500 miles with a slipping clutch. It's not a matter of the time being inflated, because it really can take 10 hours. It's just over time, as was mentioned already, the mechanics get better and better to the point that it takes much less time from beginning to end. Even with myself as an example, I'm a terrible mechanic, but I got to the point where I could do the clutch in my DSM in 2 hours by myself, and with my buddy who was a good mechanic, we could do it in just over an hour working together.

80210

iTrader: (23)

Thanks for the advice Warralton, this is my buddies Evo (also from CO). Would you advise him not to take it in at all? or?

Clutchdc5

iTrader: (1)

subscribed.

Warrtalon

iTrader: (6)

It may be worth trying, but only agree to them taking the car apart if they've 100% agreed in WRITING up front to honor the warranty. The worst thing you can do is have them take it apart with no agreement, then they decide later after seeing the aftermarket clutch that they won't cover it, and you end up paying $100/hr (normal Mitsu rate) plus the cost of a brand new t-case at Mitsu's price.

Remember also that the dealer can say they will honor it, but then the regional rep may deny it. That means the dealer has risk, because they eat the whole cost without getting reimbursed. The dealer KNOWS this, so they are even more hesitant to honor work in a situation like this depending on how their regional rep normally handles things.

Spaceball 1

iTrader: (8)

Yes it does, i have done it and have friends that do it on a weekly basis. I have two friends that are the "master mechanics" if you call them that. They get first choice on jobs that come in they pick which jobs they know they can make good money at and they grab those up. They both flag 80 to 100 hours per week and are normally there only for about 50 to 60 hours. Do they work their tail off to flag 100? yes! it is done everyday, they get paid too.

whitenblue65

thanks for the advice. so it looks like im much better off not taking the chance with the warranty and just paying for a new tc or get the parts to repair it. The question I have now is what is wrong with it? I think that the front diff is ok since I jacked up the front end and both wheels spun like they should with no bad gear noises or anything. If anyone has experience with this I would like to hear it. I will probably take out the tc this week and check out what gears (or lack there of) are messed up.