Since the first car rolled off the assembly line over 100 hundred years ago, cars have been shipped to dealerships by truck. It probably took about a week after that first shipment before a truckdriver tried to pawn off a damaged vehicle on an unsuspecting dealership.
One hundred years later nothing has changed.
With 16 million vehicles being delivered to dealerships every year, it’s not by any stretch of the imagination to believe transportation claims add up to a minimum of $100 million dollars a year.
Although there are a lot of dollars paid out in transportation claims every year, it’s mind boggling just how much is lost due to poor receiving practices at the dealership, unscrupulous truck drivers, trucking companies and just plain sloppiness throughout the whole system.
Back in my days as a warranty administrator, we had one young kid checking in cars. He didn’t let any cars or trucks go by with even the faintest hints of problems. In one year, because of his keen eye when checking in cars, we processed over $4,000 in transportation claims.
The next year when he wasn’t checking in cars, there wasn’t a single transportation claim for the entire year. It’s not because the vehicles weren’t coming in damaged; it was all being missed when they were coming off the truck.
Dealerships eat a surprising amount of missed transportation damage yearly. In some cases, the transportation damage gets submitted as a warranty claim and the manufacturer ends up footing the bill if
they don’t catch it. That shouldn’t be. It’s situations like the one I just described that can lead to the mistrust manufacturers have of the dealerships. Only under very unusual, extenuating circumstances should the factory pay for it but at the moment, I can’t think of any reasons why there would be a reason for them to pay.
If a vehicle comes in damaged, the trucking company should be paying the bill. If it gets missed, then it’s the dealership’s responsibility.
That being said, it’s important to have well trained people deal with the check in process, people who have an understanding of the rules laid out in the policy and procedures manuals in addition to the transportation claims manuals some manufacturers publish.
The task of checking in vehicles should not be left to whoever lost the coin toss in the showroom. A few select people from both the sales and service departments should know how to do the job so it could be done right from the start.
You should also consider putting the carriers you deal with on notice about your receiving hours. There isn’t any reason in the world why you shouldn’t take control of when deliveries can be made at your dealership. Put the monkey on the back of carriers to adhere to your schedule, you shouldn’t have to work within their
schedule.
Back in late 1997, General Motors included a Receiving Hours Notification form for dealerships in the Service Policies and Procedures Manual to send to the carriers. I doubt many of these forms were ever sent to carriers but if General Motors dealerships were given the option of using them, there isn’t any reason why a
carrier wouldn’t accept the same form from any dealership, no matter what franchises they may have.
By limiting the hours a carrier can drop off vehicles for immediate inspection, you can save yourself the problem of someone inexperienced checking in a vehicle and not doing it properly. Missed transportation damage can be costly.
When vehicles are inspected during the drop-off inspection times, they should be inspected with a focus on hunting down any damage on the vehicle as well as paying attention to the invoice to see that all the options and accessories are as stated or included in the vehicle. In those rare situations when conditions exist that may make the inspection difficult or cause damage to the vehicle, you should note on the delivery receipt that you will perform a delayed inspection and why it’s necessary.
When carriers do drop vehicles during the off hours, make sure those vehicles are inspected the next business day by someone experienced. Bring the vehicles into the shop when you do an inspection the next day and put them up on the lift for an inspection of the undercarriage so you do a thorough job.
After the inspection, if any problems are found, you’re not out of luck. You need to notify the carrier of what you found. Fill out the delivery receipt, fax and mail them a copy of the receipt and don’t forget to mail out the copy return receipt requested. This should also be done in cases when the initial inspections don’t uncover ‘concealed damage’ situations.
Often times you’re only given three working days to find any hidden damage and notify the carrier about it though a letter of notification (using fax and certified mail) but do not wait that long. These undercarriage inspections should be performed the next working day so if there are any problems you have the time to work
it out and notify the carrier properly.
If you follow these basic rules when taking delivery of vehicles, you’ll find that the amount of money written off to the sales department because of sloppy receiving procedures will drop off quickly.
You can get a copy of the Receiving Hours Notification form on our web site www.dealerinsight.com.
