加拿大华人论坛 加拿大汽车How to predict future repair costs

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http://www.driving.ca/Troubleshooter+predict+future+repair+costs/5358565/story.htmlTroubleshooter column for Citizen Driving Section Sept. 9. Takes Brian Turner mug logo.----For predicting future repair costs, these reports are a reliable sourceThe warranty on our 2009 Dodge Grand Caravan (60,000 kilometres) has just expired and I was offered an extended warranty costing $1,700 to cover another, I think, 40,000 km. How do I know what decision to make? My thinking would be that I could look at the repair records of the model and find out the type and cost of repairs that could be involved over the next 40,000 km. But where would I find this kind of information? The dealership does not know and is telling me that electrical systems could start needing repairs at around 70,000 km.Christoph LäerGreat questions! When it comes to the costs of repairs, automakers are silent on this key consumer issue. But only a few vehicle owners ever consider the costs of potential breakdowns when shopping for a new set of wheels, and even fewer ever question the costs of warranty repairs when they’re completed by the servicing dealership. Costs borne by a manufacturer for repairs completed under the terms of its guarantee are a great indicator of how well or poorly a vehicle will serve you after the warranty expires. Yet auto journalist new car reviews and consumer reports deliver no information on the future reliability of any product covered and few ever even mention the costs of common replacement parts and services.I sent e-mails to all the automakers operating dealerships in Canada, asking them to supply an average expense for the three top-selling vehicles of their particular brand based on raw dollars paid to their dealerships for the first three years (or 60,000 km) of the vehicles' in-service time and meterage (including parts and labour but not taxes and encompassing all recalls and other voluntary or regulated campaigns). After three weeks, and of the almost 20 e-mails I sent, only Volkswagen, Mercedes, Subaru, Chrysler, Nissan, and BMW responded -- and that was to tell me they would not make this information public.In the U.S. a great resource for this type of information for many manufacturers is Warranty Week, a newsletter for warranty management types. It offers in-depth analyses of how much money automakers sock away for future warranty expenses and how much of their annual revenues they actually spend on such costs. When it comes to individual warranty repair costs, they are actually closer to what you or I would spend on a retail basis than many think. Most manufacturers will reimburse their dealerships for labour approaching the posted retail rates and will pay the parts departments a healthy 35- to 40-per-cent profit margin on any parts used. While sometimes dealer technicians will moan about the low labour time allowances used to determine warranty reimbursements, dealers still make a good profit on warranty repairs.Warranty Week regularly offers major reports on automaker expenses and accruals. The expenses summary can be deceiving because it’s reported as a percentage of annual income, and when sales are down, such as in the case of the recent recession, the expenses are artificially high. What has more relation to actual repair costs is the accrual report, which describes how much each carmaker socks away every year to pay to repair any defects in workmanship or materials.According to the 2011 reports, Honda is the king at keeping costs down by setting aside just 0.9 per cent of its gross sales revenue for annual warranty expenses. This translated into a per-vehicle average of $220 U.S. this year. At the other end of the spectrum was Mercedes, putting a whopping $2,000 under the mattress for keeping its customers’ wheels turning. GM and Ford set aside $380 and $280 respectively and VW and Toyota came in at $1,100 and $950.The Toyota figure is surprising because it has climbed to that mark from only $300 in 2002 (Honda was at $310 that year). Some of Warranty Week analysts attribute this to soaring recall costs and Toyota being prudent as its sales and revenue have suffered major setbacks due to the effects of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan earlier this year. Warranty Week correctly points out that the differences in the products each company makes (some like Honda include power generators and motorcycles) can make side-by-side comparisons tricky, but a key factor in reliability is the change over time in each firm’s ledger. Over the last decade every reporting carmaker except Toyota has seen a steady decline in expense, with Ford moving from a per-car accrual of $500 in 2002 to only $280 this year.Not all automakers provide information for the reports. Among those that do not are Nissan, Subaru, Mitsubishi, Suzuki and Chrysler. Back to your question about your Grand Caravan. You could ask your Chrysler dealer to look at its own warranty expense report from Chrysler’s head office and provide you with an average repair cost per vehicle for both its own service department and the region of Central Canada. In the U.S., the average annual warranty claim total for all reporting automakers was around the 2.2-per-cent mark this year, according to Warranty Week. On a $20,000 vehicle that amounts to about $440 annually.Have a question or comment on automotive topics you’d like to see here? Write to Brian Turner at [email protected] <http://[email protected]> . Due to volume, direct responses aren’t always possible.

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