I saw this posted November 12 on autopshere.ca and thought I’d share it. The article is by Jack Kazmierski.
Ford’s restructured service parts warranty stands head-and-shoulders above the status quo. Have you heard about it?
Last year, Ford of Canada announced the launch of a new 24 months / unlimited km warranty on genuine Ford service parts, along with an offer to reimburse independent repair facilities up to $150 in labour coverage. In other words, if a service part purchased under the new warranty happens to fail and the repair was completed at an independent installer, Ford will reimburse the part, as well as up to $150 in labour.
This new warranty is a significant improvement over Ford’s previous warranty: 12 months / 20,000 km… but why the change?
“A best-in-class product deserves a best-in-class warranty,” explains Peter Stoddart, Marketing Plans Manager, Parts and Service, Ford Motor Company of Canada. “Our dealers and our customers told us there was always a disconnect between the value of the OE part and the warranty that we were offering.”
Quality engineering
With Ford, “best-in-class” is engineered into every part. “The majority of our service parts are actually the same parts as those that go into the OE product,” explains Pat Weiner, Chief Engineer, Ford Motor Company, “and they’re from the same suppliers.”
In addition, when designing service-unique parts, Ford engineers approach the task with a complete understanding of all the OE performance requirements. “So we’re not only looking at everything that goes into the component design,” Weiner adds, “but also into the engineering of the vehicle.
“So what we’re able to do, vs. the competition, is understand what the vehicle performance specifications are. The competition can redesign a part by backwards engineering it, but the complex interactions, the transfer functions, the things that make up the vehicle attributes—they would not have the same insights we have because we’re looking at it from a whole vehicle perspective, rather than just looking at a part.”
Benefits of history
Ford’s engineers also peer into a given part’s history to find out how that part wore out in the past and why. “And we can actually make engineering changes along the way that make the part better,” Stoddart says.
“We not only monitor all the parts that come back on warranty,” Weiner adds, “but we also monitor the Product Development system and their parts. For instance, if Product Development is making a change to improve the robustness of the current model part, we’re able to feed that back into the service part.”
Robust testing
Before putting a service part on the market, Ford tests it to the same standards as the Product Development team, which is typically 10 years / 240,000 kms. In addition, Ford is able to test electronic parts employing a uniquely beneficial approach.
“One thing the competition can’t replicate is our ability to test an electronic component for vehicle level electro-mechanical interference,” Weiner adds. “That tells us if the new component is going to set off a buzz or an unacceptable vehicle situation because of a frequency interruption. Here again, we are able to look at the solution at a vehicle level, while the competition can only address it at a component level.”
This combination of quality parts and a solid warranty is hard to beat… and the market is paying attention. “Ford of Canada saw record parts sales in 2014, and we’re well on our way to another record year,” says Stoddart. “Our customers have told us they are choosing Ford parts because of the OE quality backed by the new 24 month unlimited km service parts warranty.”