Anyway, the last two Jeeps I bought had Chrysler’s roadside assistance. During the second purchase I actually bothered to read the fine print that said that the tow would only be covered if it was warranty covered work. So really, who on the side of the road at 10 p.m. is going to try and figure out if their breakdown will be warranty covered?! So I’d still call AAA.

Bertel, the real money in this business is in the spare parts as you said in your article.

Fixing them… ummm, unless the stealership pays something to the company for each car repair… there’s also money there, but the gross is in the spares.

I has had bad experiences with the local Fiat stealership, and ALL stealerships here are just about the same: stealers. EXPENSIVE labor, ÜBER EXPENSIVE parts and craptastic repairs, the type that you have to bring back the car and fix their misdoings and pay from your pocket.

Also, as you’ve seen, new cars “can” or “must” only be repaired at your local _________ dealer. Even for a bulb change…

Those 2 are part of the reasons I prefer used, and fix the damn thing by myself.

Great article. If you write a book, I’m in line to purchase it. Or maybe I can do for myself, and print all your articles in PDF and store them in my PC. Baruth series is already like that.

Of course. The initial numbers were based on brand new cars. As the program progressed, the cars got older and breakdowns became higher. Making the service accessible raised the numbers a lot :)

ADAC has the whole spectrum. To this day, VW’s inhouse numbers are lower than ADAC, because the dealers’ ownership pool still skews to newer cars. You can buy a used car, do the proscribed dealer-maintenance program and maintain the Mobilitätsgarantie. However, buyers of used cars tend to go to independent repair shops. Who now have their own kind of mobility warranty ….

It’s like an episode of Mad Men set in 1980’s Germany. You can almost see the cigarette smoke wafting through the office.

You really, really, really need to write a book. This stuff is gold.

-ted

Intersting as 13k km = about 8k miles. The fact that the average American drives 50% more miles per year than the average Germans could go a long way towards explaining why German consumers put less emphasis on reliability.

jmo : Most US factory warranties seem to be around 3-4 years. We get mileage caps (unless you have a ferrari or something) because we drive more and it’s cheaper. A quick google search yielded 13500km as Germany’s annual car mileage, while the US’s is around 12,500 miles

Hyundai’s 10yr/100k warranty in the US two things: An added value to your purchase nobody else has and to reassure people that a disaster like hte Hyundai Excel won’t happen.

So… I just checked out hyundia.de and it seems (my german is a little weak) Hyundia Germany offers three year unlimited mileage warranties.

What is up with the German market and short warranty periods? Are the short warranties just a symptom of European consumers being far less concerned about reliability than US consumers?

JMO: When I left in 2005, it was 2 years. I tried to hammer it into their brains that this was one of the reasons for the low J.D. Power CSI score – Power created their Customer Satisfaction Index by polling owners of cars 2-3 years old. Theirs were just out of warranty and they had to pay. Toyota was still in warranty, no pay.

Just checked their German site: Still 2 years. Nuts.

What is the typical warranty on a VW in Germany? My German friend says it’s 2 years – which I find shocking.

A little bit off topic but motor torque have a selection of their favourite VW ads on their site at the moment. They’re all fantastic. Did you have a hand in any of them?

http://motortorque.askaprice.com/blog/2009/07/06/the-best-uk-volkswagen-car-adverts/

Ok, here’s the deal: If we find one of each to tell similar stories, then I’ll do the book for sure. Anonymity will be guaranteed. Equal split on royalties. Smash hit assured.

Mum’s the word

One I could mention in general, which you’ve probably run across, is not being able to get the money to create a program, so you have to resort to subterfuge to get it.

We were told by the marketing powers-that-be that our market segment was not the “core” of the business, so we were not going to get any money for trade shows. It turned out that marketing’s T&E (travel & entertainment) budget was one big pot of money… so we asked to be able to attend certain trade shows, then financed our booth and presentations via a corporate American Express green card.

We were able to do 2 trade shows before the plug got pulled on the T&E trick. But… we got our message out, and got to spend about $60,000 that way! (No one was fired, but we got a small hand-slap, and a commendation for deviousness.)