What I Do

I've not been an English instructor for nearly two years now, but what I do in its place is something less easy to explain. Most people guess incorrectly at what I do when I tell them I am a warranty administrator.

Basically, car manufacturers warranty their new vehicles so that when you have something not working correctly, provided it is manufacturer's defect and not from outside influences, you can drive your vehicle to the dealership, get it fixed, and not pay for the repair. The dealership is left have to go to the manufacturer and prove that it was defective and therefore the dealer should be reimbursed for their labor and parts by the maker. Of course, the manufacturers will be passing that cost back to their vendors who make too many of a particular defective part and the cycle continues.

Where I come in is the connection between the dealership and the manufacturer. I'm the person who makes sure the claim will hold up to the maker's scrutiny, navigate the endless hoops required for reimbursement, and get the money back on the dealer's books as quickly as possible.

My specialty right now is Mercedes Benz and Audi, but I've done Cadillac (GM in general), Porsche, Land Rover, Jaguar, Hyundai, and Volkswagon. My company processes every maker, but each administrator tends to specialize in a few so they can keep up with all the nuances and requirements. Every manufacturer's system, mandates, and "hoops" are different. And most of the dealers' systems operate on a handful of different interfaces as well, and NONE talk to each other with any efficiency. This industry is SOOO ripe for someone who can learn the needs of the system and write code that could adapt between car lines and maker's website interfaces.

In a nutshell, here's the life of a claim when its in my hands:

1. The car is at the dealership with a complaint. The story must reflect the specific complaint that brought it in and the repair must be related to that complaint. You find something else wrong? New line, new repair, called an add-on, which requires the manager's approval in writing.

2. The tech has to figure out what part is actually defective. I have to make sure that part is covered under the warranty, and the story of the repair has to reflect all the work that went into correcting the problem. The tech has to punch the time he took on each individual repair and I have to make sure he has the time to justify what we are going to charge the manufacturer for.

3. I have to find the labor operation codes for each thing he did, code it, and link it, for Mercedes, to a damage code. The Benz Germans brought in three different translation teams to convert their words to English for the damage code group, one for the labor operations group, and one for the parts. AND THEY DIDN'T CONFER WITH ONE ANOTHER. So what the tech is calling something may have three different names in labor, damage, and part wording. I have to put all of those together and find each piece of the puzzle. Once I've worked out the puzzle, I plug each piece in to its respective place in the dealer's system, and close the claim, so that the money hits the books, waiting for a credit from the maker to balance out those books.

4. I have to transfer those claims over to the manufacturer's system and then tweak them, because the two systems are nothing alike and things have to be moved around, some things added along the way, to get it paid. I then submit it and hope it appears as a payment on the next morning's credit note. Sometimes there are problems and it gets sent back to me to continue to work out the puzzle of how to get each claim paid.

5. I post the payments, run the schedule showing things that have been closed and not yet paid, or claims that have been paid and didn't pay what I closed them for, and make adjustments to send those credit or debits back to the correct accounts within the dealership. Example: Mercedes pays different handling credits depending on the model year. The dealership's system can't adapt to different amounts, so about half the payments on the parts are more money that we have on our books. I have to send that extra money back to parts to get it off my schedule and balance that claim out to zero.

I do this for each claim, for each of the dealerships I serve, which currently include ones in California, Alaska, and Michigan. Those dealerships probably generate about 25-30 claims a day that I'm working on. I'm also the assistant warranty administrator on the largest Cadillac/Hummer dealer in the world. They have more than 150claims each day. And a claim can have from one to twenty different repairs, each its own issues and problems.

It's an interesting job, one that now allows me to work from home, and one that is never the same from day to day. I've learned tons about cars, ten keys, and accounting I never would have discovered otherwise. My research and problem solving skills have served me well in this new career. And other than nightmarish end of month (when all the books need to be closed on ALL the repairs done that month, even the nastiest ones, before midnight of the last day of the month), I've honestly enjoyed it.

I have become very partial to Mercedes vehicles due to my time with them. I can tell you about the seat massage feature, the aluminum backed full wood grain trim throughout, the incredible navigation features than include night vision displays to see things out in the dark, headlights that sense curves and alter their course for you, and sensors that alter the seat position, head restraint, and seatbelt tension within 2 seconds to protect you in a crash. In stop and go traffic? Your car can lock on the vehicle in front of you and alter your speed to stay in the same position behind that vehicle without you touching the pedals. You can choose the option where you engine is made from start to finish by a single engineer, one set of hands until it reaches your car. Ah, to be rich.

More than you probably ever wanted to know, about Mercedes or my job, but there it is.