Removing pain from the warranty process
Key Highlights
- Warranty management involves complex documentation, timely claims, and understanding OEM-specific requirements, which can be resource-intensive for smaller fleets.
- Digitizing warranty data at the point of purchase and automating claim processes can significantly reduce errors and improve recovery rates.
- Focusing dedicated personnel or teams on warranty issues enhances claim accuracy and expedites reimbursements, especially in larger fleets.
- Modern CMMS platforms and VMRS coding enable detailed tracking, root cause analysis, and easier identification of warranty-eligible failures.
- Some fleets opt to forego extended warranties in favor of negotiated lower prices, but this approach requires careful cost-benefit analysis and robust maintenance practices.
Warranty tracking and recovery is like a trip to the dentist. It’s probably gonna’ hurt, but it’s worth it in the long run. Completing a warranty repair is often a tug-of-war between recovering the costs you’re rightfully owed and the time and resources that task consumes.
“Warranty and policy are among the top five most aggravating things about maintenance,” observed fleet maintenance consultant Greg Hart. “On top of the usual sources of frustration—PMs, tires, fuel, people—you then have to jump through all the hoops the suppliers put in place to get your money.”
Whether or not a part is covered is not always immediately obvious. It might be out of warranty or may have been damaged through driver abuse. Maybe a component failed because it wasn’t spec’d properly in the first place. All of these considerations factor into the authorization decision from the manufacturer, dealer, or supplier.
And keep in mind that delays in authorization can sideline equipment longer than the repair itself.
Big fleets have executives and staff, like a warranty administrator, to chase down warranty issues and file claims. But smaller fleets with fewer resources can be more susceptible. In these less well-resourced operations, the responsibility for warranty processing often falls on the fleet or maintenance manager or the parts person. This often results in filing delays or claims being outright forgotten in the day-to-day mayhem of a busy shop.
Fleets forfeit thousands of dollars in warranty claims every year because the documentation can’t be found, or nobody has the time to do the research. CMMS platforms have stepped in here to help the warranty capture, or gathering and digitizing the VIN, asset info, in-service dates, and warranty terms—putting a fleet in a comfortable position from the start.
These are key to receiving warranty approval from the OEM or retailer.
“A successful claim lives or dies by the quality of the narrative,” explained Brian Mulshine, senior director of TMT product management for Trimble. “Ensure every claim includes the exact fail date and odometer reading.
You must also satisfy the three C’s: complaint, cause, and correction.
Furthermore, Mulshine, who spent over three decades with International Motors (when it was Navistar), warned that “not all OEMs allow fleets to perform every type of repair,” advising fleets to “ensure their team understands which components are ‘fleet-fixable’ and which must go to a dealer.”
Mulshine added manufacturers demand more visual evidence in recent years and each maintain different filing standards, “requiring training on the specific nuances of each brand,” he said.
That all sounds like a lot of work, and a good reason why those big fleets have dedicated positions to handle claims.
Fleets of every size, though, operate at tighter margins than ever, and they can’t let money owed to them slip through their fingers. In an effort to make the process more painless, we spoke with several experts to find some modern best practices.
Focused approach
Hart, the principal at Hart Consulting, specializes in streamlining and seeking maintenance efficiencies in fleets of between 75 and 1,000 trucks. And he has seen it all, from a fleet whose maintenance manager works in an office 500 miles from any of the shops he manages, to two guys with a fleet of 1,000 trucks who collect more in warranty than a 3,000-truck fleet with a staff of eight warranty managers.
It’s about focus, Hart says. “Fleets need an individual or team focused on warranty, not someone doing multiple tasks of running a parts counter and writing work orders on top of filing warranty claims,” he explained.
And according to Mike Holcomb, a field sales engineer for Samsara, managing warranties often falls to the end of the priority list, adding that many fleets “don’t have a system to help them remember which warranties apply to which products, so they forget that the work is covered.”
This is where digitizing data at the time of purchase and automating processes can alleviate recovery issues later.
Holcomb said with Samsara’s warranty management tool, “When a defect or maintenance issue is reported, the tool instantly verifies whether the asset or component is still covered under warranty and generates claim documentation.
“This helps maintenance teams avoid paying out-of-pocket for repairs that should be reimbursed, ensuring that claims for in-warranty repairs are processed quickly and accurately,” he added.
And every aspect of the claim must be accurate, as OEMs have strict parameters for approvals.
Without that undivided attention, the right info may not appear on the claim forms. David Dole, director of customer service and warranty at Daimler Truck North America, noted that timely and effective warranty repairs require clear and complete information from the start.
“Providing accurate descriptions of the concern, including relevant fault codes and component location when applicable, helps reduce follow-up questions during claim review,” he said. “Consistent documentation also supports more efficient coordination between fleets, dealers, and DTNA.”
Trimble’s Mulshine noted OEMs have strict filing windows ranging from 30 to 90 days.
The clearer the focus, the better the outcome—if you have the time and resources. Fleets that still track warranty on paper are significantly disadvantaged, needing sophisticated filing systems and staff to do the research on every claim. In a 10-truck fleet, that might be manageable, but most medium and large fleets are now using digital warranty claims systems.
Ditch the warranty?
Because some portion of the total price of a truck includes a buffer against future warranty claims, is it reasonable to forego the warranty altogether in exchange for a reduced price?
This approach isn’t for everyone, but it’s not uncommon for large fleets with brick-and-mortar maintenance facilities and skilled staff to forego warranty except for major components.
Darry Stuart, president of DWS Fleet Management Services, believes it can be the right move in these cases.
“Those fleets will negotiate a price on the order of maybe 6% or 7% less than the list price; in exchange, they give up all warranty except for major failures,” Stuart said. “They save X thousand dollars per truck on the order, and that goes into the maintenance and repair kitty.”
“The warranty system has become so complicated that probably less than 50% of the warranty money fleets are entitled to is actually being paid—especially on extended warranties.”
It’s not just the upfront cost, he adds. There are admin costs associated with tracking and collecting warranty, downtime while the truck is serviced, and the cost of tying those dollars up for five years.
“Rather than an extended warranty, I like to call it pre-paid maintenance,” Stuart said. “If you have the facilities and the staff, you’re paying twice for that bit of protection. In my experience, the cost of repair/replacement on warranty items usually works out to be 30 or 40% of the cost of an extended warranty.”
Extended warranty coverage is expensive, sometimes on the order of $10,000–$12,000, but for smaller fleets lacking maintenance facilities, or fleets that run trucks past 500,000 miles, it may still be the safest bet—assuming you have a functional warranty program in place that keeps track of all warranties and the vital information the OEM/seller needs to process the claim.
CMMS Platforms & VMRS Codes
Cloud-based SRM and CMMS platforms can improve uptime and simplify warranty claims by orchestrating the entire commercial vehicle service ecosystem. By digitizing and coordinating repair and maintenance workflows across suppliers, dealers, and OEMs, fleets get the benefit of a much larger picture while retaining granular detail, especially if they use VMRS (Vehicle Maintenance Reporting Standards) codes.
“When you start looking at data and analytics made possible with VMRS coding, you can drill down to the root cause of the failure and determine if it’s a warrantable failure,” said Decisiv’s senior engagement manager, Krystal Laughead. “If they are using our platform, they’re able to identify repeat failures. They can put in a part number; like a turbo, for example, that was replaced a year ago. That warranty may still be applicable.”
“If brakes were done three weeks ago, but the truck is at a different dealer with a problem, with our platform, they can see that it had been recently serviced,” she added. “This adds a lot of visibility to the entire transaction, making warranty much easier to track.”
Laughead says of the 30 or so fleets she deals with regularly, about half use VMRS codes. “Some fleets don’t understand VMRS; some of them are just old-school," she said. "Others [believe], ‘Hey, it’s just a warranty. I’ll send it over to the dealer. They do everything. As long as the truck gets repaired and back on the road, I’m happy.’”
But as some of those old-school managers shuffle into retirement, younger technicians entering the industry are more willing to embrace emerging technology.
Decisiv recently added an AI engine that does some automated VMRS encoding on the dealer side.
“When the data comes across to the fleet, they see VMRS-coded data,” said Rob Ziemba, vice president of marketing at Decisiv. “Previously, they would have to manually code it up themselves because the dealer wouldn’t typically do it. They are now getting more access to that data.”
Laughead said fleets want more data these days to drive cost analysis. She said warranty claims provide insight into the buying and spec’ing process, helping them avoid downtime resulting from bad decisions.
“Without solid data, you may have the impression that a certain brand of part is more prone to failure than another, but VMRS coding helps to reveal the root cause,” she says. “Data doesn’t rely on impressions.”