This will be an interesting thread moving forward......

Mike L said:

Except for the part where many millionaires are the employers in this country. We’re probably walking a fine line here where this thread can get derailed and closed. Let’s tread lightly.

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Big difference between millionaires and companies with profits in the millions though.

The NDP party's entire election campaign was to tax the super rich. Not trying to be political but the super rich can only pay for so much. You'll never win an election with only 1 strategy.

John C. said:

Even warranty jobs that the factory gave times on were not flat rates. It was just a statement that said it was all they were going to pay.

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Ditto at Deere, except in the last couple of years.

Nige said:

the good old "If you have a $50k claim you need a $50k story

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Now with Deere, if we tell a good story, they have paid more than their job codes state.

So the pen can be mightier than the wrench!

When i was service manager at a small ag dealership a lifetime ago, i learned real early to write a good story. At that time Sperry New Holland had the best warranty in the business and if you could prove the fault, they would approve warranty on machines that were long past the assumed warranty. That changed quickly right after Sperry exitted and Ford jumped in

First and foremost requirement for a top notch service manager-You have to be able to spin a story
10 times better than a politician or news outlet. Your degree/sheepskin hanging on the wall should
be from the top 10 schools of bullsh!t artistry. I have always found it interesting the job requires a
minimum of 10 Pinocchio's by noon and there's always someone willing to take the job.

I was a maintenance manager and a service manager and it didn't matter what kinds of tales you could tell with any of the dealers or manufacturers. The words on the warranty papers was the determiner of warranty coverage. Everyone on the supply side knew what was happening so the size of the owner's company was the usual determiner of who got coverage outside of the time limits. A five million dollar a year company got better coverage than a $500,000 dollar a year company.

A couple of months ago I had a call from a gravel pit client who had a final drive fail on a big Cat excavator within the time limits and the type of failure. The dealer service department decided a rock got into the sprocket seal area and caused the failure. Turns out there was a service letter out about the factory issue and the service manager didn't want to take the time to look. He just wanted to bill the customer and not have to mess with the warranty issues.

Other times the factory people just outright lie about their product. Link-Belt 4300 CII logging shovels had a problem of high crankcase pressures blowing engine oil out every gasket and seal for years. It usually happened while the machines and engines were still in warranty. Back then there were air compressor installed on the engines to pressurize the hydraulic tanks. The cooling lines to the compressors were too small and not allowing enough flow to the compressor to cool it. The rings went bad and lots of air under pressure went into the crankcase. The air compressor was the same that would be put on a truck to work a brake system. In this case it only filled and air tank and had a line that went through a regulator to the hydraulic tank. Most of the time the compressor was just running unloaded. I called the compressor people who were very quick to inform me that Link-Belt was told about the issue and the problem was Link-Belt's to solve. I called Link-Belt who said there was no issue and the problem belonged to the customers. I left the dealership shortly after that.

I could write about this stuff for days and I'm sure Nige could do the same for weeks.

It's sad when it depends on who you talk to. This is where a good salesman can be a great benefit if the service manager tries to get out of a legitimate warranty claim.

I remember back in the day we had a C7 back when they were new, and bad. Road service guy came out and gave it a little spritz to get it started one last time to get it off the bad corner, and said "don't tell Cat we did this, they will do ANYTHING to get out of warranty." It was the usual HEUI pump shelling out at the root of the problem.

The short time I worked for everyone's hero Ford, working 6.9/7.3's the lousy excuses never ended.
The only reason I drive a Ranger is I got a good deal on it, Other wise I would have built a B61 mack
or a KW pickup. At that dealer--the lying started at 8 am and didn't stop till 5 pm.

And y'all thought those creative writing assignments in high school were useless.

terex herder said:

And y'all thought those creative writing assignments in high school were useless.

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I just sat in class drawing pictures of old cars and trucks-still got a C. And a {A} in art. Which caused a B average.

Truck Shop said:

I just sat in class drawing pictures of old cars and trucks-still got a C. And a {A} in art. Which caused a B average.

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Based on your trucks pics. you still should have averaged an A. Your truck pics. are better than A plus!

I can't say i've ever seen a good write up from a service. It always reads like it was written by a 12 year old (being generous), half the words spelled wrong or just used wrong, even with a decent understanding of what they did sometimes confusing trying to figure out what they are saying. I think many times even at the dealership the server manager just takes word for word from mechanic instead of cleaning it up.

suladas said:

I can't say i've ever seen a good write up from a service. It always reads like it was written by a 12 year old (being generous), half the words spelled wrong or just used wrong, even with a decent understanding of what they did sometimes confusing trying to figure out what they are saying. I think many times even at the dealership the server manager just takes word for word from mechanic instead of cleaning it up.

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I have the opposite problem. The service writer often condenses my full-page essays into 4-6 sentences.

Sometimes nowadays businesses use a crappy computer program for fleet maintenance/repair that words stuff strangely and is somewhat vague and it also depends who is entering the information. I bought a truck once out of a large fleet and i was able to get copies of some of the repairs that had been done to it. It was like trying to decipher a foreign language. Talk about vague

If it's a job you've never seen or done before, Quote to strip and inspect first, so that it is just chargeable hours at an hourly rate, then quote to repair from there so at least you can properly see the pitfalls ahead and how long it's going to take to put back together.

I'm waiting on the owner's input on the CB64. I went out to a job yesterday for an a/c problem that ended up being plugged airflow filters. Before I left there, 3 other machines went down within 2 hours...............all of them filter related. Just shocking

The owner called me today. He is getting a trade value for the CB64 and may possibly trade it off for a new roller..........providing Cat can find him one. It still may end up being a repair job, but I don't have to bother with it for now.
The JD 650J dozer that quit running on the job yesterday........lack of PM service so bad that the fuel filters completely plugged up. I serviced it completely today so it's working again.


The outer air filter had already started to distort. Current hours on the meter are 7224. Nothing else needs to be said Yeah, that's 2019

EEK
good greif

Its only going to get worse in this industry - good for those of us who like to work at least.