Introduction Over the past several years, discrepancies have emerged in how manufacturers evaluate and approve dealers’ warranty parts and labor rate adjustment requests. Across multiple stores and years, dealers have observed inconsistent application of rules and policies, shifting and inconsistent interpretations of 'warranty-like' qualifications, and contradictory inclusion and exclusion decisions. These inconsistencies — found in…

Introduction: Incentives Drive Performance Across the retail automotive industry, one truth is consistent: people perform to the level they’re incentivized. From sales consultants earning commissions to service managers rewarded for departmental gross, performance-based pay structures are the standard for driving results. Should the same logic apply when selecting vendors and partners? Just as a flat…

In recent weeks, we’ve seen vendors in the Retail Warranty Reimbursement space heavily promoting the use of artificial intelligence (AI) as the latest breakthrough in processing efficiency and accuracy. While the buzzwords sound impressive — “AI-driven job classification,” “better analytics,” “faster turnarounds”— the reality is often far less revolutionary. In fact, these AI-driven shortcuts may…

As inflation continues to impact every corner of the retail automotive industry, many manufacturers continue to offer dealers CPI-based programs to automatically increase their warranty labor reimbursement rates each year. At first glance, these CPI (Consumer Price Index) programs seem like an enticing offer. After all, the programs offer annual warranty labor rate increases tied…