Something you just don't talk about
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He will examine such things as vehicle mileage, date of purchase, the type of fault and date of repair by the distributor. Using his experience, he will look at the man-hours claimed for the labour charge and see if it is reasonable for the work carried out.
Helping the claims assessor to make decisions is all the Previous warranty claim information which is instantly available to him via the vdu. This s quickly and simply retrieved in virtually any form, such as all previous claims for that particuar chassis or all the claims made py a particular distributor.
Finally, if the assessor still has 3ny queries, he can ring the Jistributor and sort it out over he phone. If the claim is estabished as correct in every detail, he distributor will be reimpursed for the repair; Leyland luarantees to pay all correctly ;ubmitted claims by cheque within 15 days.
Sometimes the situation irises where a distributor has :epaired the lorry free of charge, )nly to find that Leyland then :ejects the claim. If the rejection is because the claim (or the associated material) was submitted too late, then the distributor must bear the cost.
But if the claim was rejected because the component was not faulty after all, then the distributor is likely to approach the operator and try to recover the cost of the work.
Fortunately this rarely happens, which underlines the importance of the distributor's decision to accept or reject the fault as a warranty job.
If a particular case is marginal then the distributor might forewarn the customer that the claim may not be accepted by Leyland and although the work will be done the operator may have to pay later.
This might seem a nasty shock to the operator, but it is an inevitable side-effect of a system that is sensibly designed to give priority to getting the repair work carried out quickly.
If the claim is for an expensive unit such as complete engine or is a difficult decision, then the distributor can call in a Leyland area service executive for advice.
While the warranty claim form is being processed at Leyland, the faulty material or components in question are delivered to Leyland Vehicles' new war ranty recovery centre at Common Bank, Chorley. There are 25 fitters here, stripping down, examining and testing returned components.
There are vdus here as well so that fitters can have access to the full history of a particular chassis or look at component failure rates. Leyland keeps a running "top 40" failure rate chart and while obviously not giving too much away, Rod Monument said that oil seals in general are "top of the flops".
Where bought-in components are involved these are normally forwarded to the manufacturer concerned, along with an appropriate claim from Leyland. The manufacturer will test the unit and credit Leyland accordingly
Some component manuf( turers recognise that the n( Leyland test facilities are bet than their own and are qu happy for Leyland to test thi components and will accept t verdict.
All the unwanted, faul material and components a effectively scrapped and in either be sold as such or will I fed into Leyland's own foundry Rod Monument was pleas with the results of Leyland's newed efforts on the warrar operation. "We're turning wi ranty round from a dirty wo into something positiv supporting sales and ma keting."
The results show this is tru warranty costs Leyland less thi it did three years ago and tl effect is also filtering through the 60-odd component supplie Leyland deals with. Rod sa there are signs that the failu rate of the bought-in comp nents is improving.
Demonstrating the suppo function of the warranty oper tion, Leyland is running a "sat ration" programme on the 1-■ range — Roadtrain, Cruiser ar Constructor — where evel single item that is the subject a warranty claim is being ex mined at the warranty recove centre.
Hopefully, this means that the little teething troubles ass ciated with new range ( vehicles are ironed out mo quickly than usual.