[Shiny]

HoovDaddy - Thank you for taking the time to share all this. It's interesting for me and you know a lot.

Please forgive the rambling below and sorry to OP and others for the diversion but it's the way I am.

Originally Posted by HoovDaddy

Only warranty repairs were shared with Pontiac Motor Div., that's how the dealer got paid for parts and labor. There were no computers until the late '70s, so all data was input on a teletype machine and sent via phone line to PMD. Customer pay work wasn't kept track of by the dealer or PMD. If a problem occurred soon after the warranty expired, that the customer thought should be covered, or a failure that wasn't covered under warranty, that would be the only time PMD got involved.

I'm kind of surprised they didn't get any feedback from dealer repairs after the warranty period. From a "direct" business cost perspective, warranty costs can kill profit FAST so managing that is obvious, but being "blind" to field issues after the warranty is pretty risky, especially when you introduce new components/technology that might have an early "wear-out" and cause black eyes. I guess the internet makes it a little easier today to find out every car like yours has a failure at 35,000 miles.

I can remember '78 Firebird GM T-top roofs collapsing behind the windshield over railroad tracks. Those claims and the following caught the attention of PMD. Roofs on '78 G bodies rotting out, Transmission coolers on early 70's cars failing. When gasoline started having alcohol added, around 1979, it destroyed accelerator pumps causing a change to Viton. Early speedo hall-effect sensors failed regularly. Serious warranty findings from the dealer level would generate a Service Bulletin.

These are interesting examples of how being "blind" to failures after the warranty period can hurt you. So if there were "epidemic" failures beyond warranty after this, I imagine PMD heard it from more than the dealers!

No list of common repairs, you just remembered it. A walk through the parts room could tell you the popular repairs.

It sounds like the parts department was the "canary" and PMD could figure out pretty fast what parts were being ordered as an indicator of what was failing and when.

Quality at the dealer level was important, but a short step behind making money. All warranty parts had to be saved for 90 days when a GM rep would approve them for scrap. Some parts PMD was interested in inspecting due to increased warranty claims.

The 90 days thing is kind of surprising if the only reason was to "keep the dealers honest". But then again, it may have been their way of assuring a supply of parts to characterize if they got wind of an issue. As to inspecting, failure analysis is a routine part of supply chain management, whether dealing with GM "internal" suppliers or external suppliers. Supplier contracts I was around had quality and reliability targets spelled out, with financial penalties at different defect and/or failure rate thresholds. So if you are going after a supplier for hurting your manufacturing quality or field reliability, you gotta prove it is their fault. Not always simple but always contentious.

Staffing was determined by work load/reasonable repair time, shop space was also a consideration. There were flat rate books and GM had their own warranty times.

I guess I was thinking if there was a big issue like your transmission cooler example, it would require a lot of "unplanned" repairs and having data that predicted this could help flag a need for more techs. But good point about shop space putting a cap on it..

Service managers reported to the dealer owner or general manager. Larger dealers usually had a manager that oversaw Service/Parts/Body Shop. The individual managers reported to that manager.

This makes sense for the dealer but I imagine puts pressure on service/parts/body shops to maximize profit. I'm sure you had your share of that pressure. Customer experience with repair quality was up to the dealer then. Balance!

Around 1979, Michigan required that mechanics be ASE certified which was not welcomed with open arms back then. Then in 1980 cars had the first computer and much training was required. People didn't have home computers yet, nobody knew how to fix these things. Pretty rocky time for a mechanic, a lot to take in.

I'll bet! Especially since you were always under time pressure.

Thanks again for sharing your experience.

Mike