Aftermarket Warranty Woes

[OneCheekRider]

Dealership now has 3 other customers with similar breach of contract by RPM/Revolos. Dealer is now getting their lawyers involved to investigate and pursue if they believe there is a case. I'll be sending a lot of folks their way if they're willing to battle this out with me and the others impacted.

[butcher bergs]

Any idea why the dealer has interest in chasing this down?

[e30addict]

They want to get paid for warranty work would be my guess.

[butcher bergs]

That's pretty much what I'm asking, does the dealership itself have unpaid warranty claims beyond this one?

[PurplePackage]

Dealership now has 3 other customers with similar breach of contract by RPM/Revolos. Dealer is now getting their lawyers involved to investigate and pursue if they believe there is a case. I'll be sending a lot of folks their way if they're willing to battle this out with me and the others impacted.

If the dealer needs to sue them to get paid it means you can expect the same.

[OneCheekRider]

My take on it is there are two issues here from the dealer's perspective:

1. It makes the dealership look bad.
Customer brings in a vehicle with something that is covered under the aftermarket warranty and aftermarket warranty denies the claim and tells dealer to inform customer. Customer goes WTF I paid for this warranty and you're denying this?! Dealer explains it's not their fault but still gets a stigma in the customer's eyes. Process also takes weeks, or in my case coming up on 2 months.

2. It's principle/the right thing to do.
Dealership sells a similar aftermarket warranty and is very familiar with the terms of a warranty contract. Dealer is also large enough to deal with aftermarket warranties on a weekly basis and experiences little to no problems for clearly covered parts. Revolos has now proven a trend at not fulfilling the terms of a contract they issued. Not cool.

Like I said, I will be giving this dealership a lot of praise regardless how this works out. Maybe they're doing it so I bring my other bikes here and tell my riding network how amazing they are so they get more business. Or maybe they see a company shitting on their customers and believes it's wrong and feels the need to stand up to them. Maybe it's a little of both. Either way I'm impressed they're taking a stand. They could easily tell me to pay the balance due for the repairs but have not, not yet at least.

[e30addict]

Dealership sells a similar aftermarket warranty

Good point. Lot of money right there. F&I products often are more profitable then the unit itself. The profits also compound if people finance the warranty. Dealer makes money on the warranty and it increases profit on the note as well.

Pissed off customers with one warranty company are unlikely to purchase another. Total profit goes down. My cynical mind says unless the warranty company really pissed them off, I doubt the dealer is suing them to "do the right thing" by the customers.

[OneCheekRider]

It's still theoretical dollars to be gained. I don't see the ROI analysis making sense where "if we win this case we earn ____ dollars". Just like every other person impacted with these warranty denials, it doesn't make financial sense to chase this warranty company given the relatively small amounts of the claims. But maybe if the dealer represents all impacted customers for a total value exceeding a certain threshold, they can recoup legal fees? Or maybe it is a selling point when someone questions the warranty..."we had customers get screwed and we fought for them, here's the proof". That would probably sell me if I was on the fence.

Either way, monetarily driven or not, I'm glad they feel the need to fight this.

[e30addict]

It's still theoretical dollars to be gained. I don't see the ROI analysis making sense where "if we win this case we earn ____ dollars". Just like every other person impacted with these warranty denials, it doesn't make financial sense to chase this warranty company given the relatively small amounts of the claims. But maybe if the dealer represents all impacted customers for a total value exceeding a certain threshold, they can recoup legal fees? Or maybe it is a selling point when someone questions the warranty..."we had customers get screwed and we fought for them, here's the proof". That would probably sell me if I was on the fence.

Either way, monetarily driven or not, I'm glad they feel the need to fight this.

It's not small money. They easily could be looking at the cost of just your repair in lost profit opportunity on every bike they move. They already have other customers that the warranty company is hosing, which are more mouths saying don't get a warranty, it's not worth it to everyone they talk to. The dealer could be trading legal fees (maybe) towards future gains. Bonus if they can get a judgement to to have any legal fees covered.

I hope you also contacted the AG to put pressure on the warranty company from as many sides as possible.

[OneCheekRider]

so this sucks...gave the dealer some space since they were "helping me out". Found out the main service guy I was working with (and was super helpful) has left the dealership and apparently there is no and has been no dealership support on this. "warranty company denied the claim, sorry nothing we can do" from the new guy. Then he hits me with the bill. I got a little upset with him and understand it's not technically their problem but why the heck did they lollygag for nearly 3 months?! As soon as the denial hit, I instructed them to fix the bike and didn't expect any additional support from them but let them take their time in good faith since they were gonna help me.

What a shitshow.

[PurplePackage]

Sorry you had to eat a sandy shit sandwich. You took a big one for the team by telling the full story though.

[e30addict]

Ugh. Sometimes the dealers are as shitty as the warranty companies.

[OneCheekRider]

I texted the old service guy since we were close-ish enough to exchange cell #s. While he didn't go into it, he apologized to me and said him and the dealership didn't see eye to eye. Since he was super helpful in working with me and getting the warranty company to at least Approve the fork seals ($400 job at this dealership), I'm wondering if he didn't agree how the company treated certain customers, including my situation. I owe him a beer for his efforts as I was with him on some of the calls -- he really did fight for me -- so will be interesting to have a more candid discussion. Either way, not having dealership support makes this endeavor much more difficult. Since I've been 3 months without the bike, I'm just happy to get it back at this point.

I plan to write a few negative reviews for the warranty company and a somewhat neutral review for the dealership at this point but not before I write the legal department at the warranty with a demand letter...

[OreoGaborio]

Dude... that suuucks...

Glad you're able to find some silver lining though... best of luck getting everything taken care of.