Self-audit time....

[GregH]

So the service manager comes to me and say that our dealer has been "selected" for self audit.

 

He tells me that we're high in transmissions, axles and 6.0L drivability.

 

I go to his office and ask to see the paperwork. He's a very good manager, and he printed out all the warranty trend reports for the past 6 months.

 

I reviewed them last night, and I see a few things that look out of line with our group. Transmissions and axles took a surge starting about 5 months ago, and have been increasing ever since. 6.0L drive took a surge in labor cost/vehicle starting about the same time I arrived at the dealer. Went from +1.3 to about +3.0. I'm the only 6.0L tech here, so I'm the one responsible for the surge.

 

The surge is understandable because the previous 6.0L tech here (who now does nothing but transmissions) told me that he was consistantly underpaid for his warranty 6.0 repairs. Well, I studied SLTS, and talked to our warranty guy (we outsource our warranty claims process) and made sure that I was going to be paid fairly for my warranty claims. So far, I've been paid a fair amount for working on these beasts.

 

I also got a list of claims that Ford recommended we review. I went through them, and they seem quite reasonable. One was a claim for an EGR valve cleaning. Another was a no start concern (STC fitting). After repairing the fitting, it ran rough, so I diagnosed and installed a couple of injectors too. What is funny is that the claims they listed were all fully legit. The claims that are a little dubious, they didn't include.

 

I'm wondering if the claims list is a full list of questionable repairs (in Ford's opinion), or are they holding something back for an auditor if one is called in?

 

I know what needs to be done to reduce the numbers. I am capable of doing it, and management and I are in the process of crafting an "action plan" to submit to Ford. Our numbers will come down and we'll be off of review, of course. I don't care for the fact that I'll have to be underpaid for a while to do it, however.

 

I don't agree with Ford's number system at all. But that's not important. Ford believes in the numbers, and they call the shots. We've got no choice but to comply.

 

Anyone else have some input to their audit experience?

[Keith Browning]

Yeah, we did! There was an initial review then my service manager spent a week or two or more, I can't recall, but he had to gather repair orders from a list and review them. The auditor returned and there was further review. We were high in a few things and of course, 6.0 repairs were on the list. There was no charge back at all BUT he COULD have charged us like $7,000. For us, they were interested in fine-tuning our policy and procedure like punch times, write ups and op codes. After a short probationary period the auditor returned and was apparently pleased with our improvement.

 

I have noticed that Ford, and rightfully so, is tightening their handle on policy and warranty which also effect what we do in the service bays. If you do not follow the diagnostic procedure and claim labor erroneous labor ops and parts you will likely be called on it sooner or later. For example, if you perform every test in the book and end up cleaning an EGR valve and then put in the claim written up that way instead of the TSB you can expect it to bounce.

 

The key for us techs is to follow the proper diagnostic routines, use proper punch times and accurately DOCUMENT EVERY PINPOINT TEST, RESULTS, HOTLINE CONTACT, SERVICE MESSAGES AND TSB'S FOLLOWED NEATLY AND COMPLETELY ON THE BACK OF THE REPAIR ORDER. AND DON'T FORGET TO DOCUMENT THE INCOMING AND OUTGOING MILEAGE AS WELL. Doing all that will most importantly help you and your dealer get paid, good write-ups will be you best and only defense when a claim is bounced or you are subjected to an audit or review.

[FordTechCA]

we have been down that road too. self audit, then i guess it would be the next level audit we have also gone through with some minor charge backs and the auditor left with a few hints of things he saw that could cause future audits. right now we are high in transmissions and probably diesels. the boss came out the other day and said we need to repair more transmissions then replacing them like we have been doing. the 3 of us that do trans work just looked at him and asked what happens if we start reparing some that were boarderline and they end up coming back, whould that increase our numbers in repeat repairs? we have a hard enough time doing repairs on trans with the low cost caps and our warranty labor rate to Ford is $105 a hour. as for diesels, of course we are going to be high, we have 5 fully certified diesel techs and 1 thats only engine certified(he let his driveability cert lapse). at any given time we have enough 6.0L work to keep 3 of us busy 40 hours a week while the rest pick up the extra. i think we do more diesel work then alot of other dealers near us including dealers that are bigger then us, we only have 16 techs total so the reason our 6.0L numbers are higher. our problem is visiting owners, its a nice problem for us but hurts the numbers in the end as we are still very busy right now booking a week out. i would say 2/3's of the vehicles we service are bought from other dealers.

 

another funny thing to add to this topic, the person that did our audit from ford is now our FSE. i wonder how much he really knows when it comes to repairing vehicles. /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/shrug.gif

[Alex Bruene]

My dealer also just came out of an audit. We had a sit down with a few warranty reps. that came up from the U.S. And, ofcourse, we are high in diesel engine and driveability. The twist was that he said that he overlooks 6.0 warranty, as they are aware that it is not the most trouble free engine on the market, and that he can see that we are a dumping ground for most of the other dealers in our area that are certified enough to sell the trucks, but turn around and tell their customers they can't fix them. He did also say that if we only did a small volume of diesel work, and were not a commercial dealer (which we are), he may not have been as forgiving. I guess we just got lucky.