Auto Repairs:If anything can go wrong, it will'

...f Introduction of manufacturers' design changes to cut the need for—and costs of-—auto repairs...

...Bumpers are the egregious example of repair problems—and safety hazards ¦—built into automobile design, but they are not the only one...

...some even claimed that the industry was fraudulent in its dealings with the public...

...The major automobile manufacturers are giants of industry and as such are immune to sanction or control by the people or the Government.' This kind of statement was common and could be found essentially verbatim in many of the letters analyzed...

...Many letters which cited unsatisfactory warranty work or high labor costs also complained about repairs which were not done properly the first time and thus required additional trips to the service facility...

...Unlike such standard maintenance parts as tires, batteries, and sparkplugs, most repair parts are "single source" items available only from the major auto makers—a fact that may help explain their inordinate cost...

...Faulty design is compounded by slipshod production and assembly...

...These were the highlights of the study: f The largest group of complaints —about twenty-four per cent—centered on excessive costs...

...The bumper story is illustrative: Insurance industry witnesses told the Hart Subcommittee that replacement or repair of auto bumpers accounts for thirteen per cent of property damage and collision repair costs...

...Most writers felt that the automotive industry was collecting more than a fair profit on the goods and services provided...

...It seems to me there has been a striking lack of interest on industry's part to examine critically this system from the consumer's point of view...

...This certainly has something to do with the shortage of skilled mechanics, the high turnover in the industry, and the incredibly poor quality of much repair work...

...it is cheaper to replace than repair...

...According to Labor Department estimates, the 825,000 persons employed as automotive mechanics in 1968 earned an average wage of $3.58 an hour—seventy-five cents less than the average hourly rate for laborers and helpers on organized construction jobs, and forty cents less than the rate paid to unskilled workers on Detroit assembly lines...

...Why is it that if anything can go wrong, it will...

...The dealer listed eleven possible defects—ranging from improper control of exhaust pollutants to damaged upholstery—that might go uncorrected as a result of Chevrolet's policy...

...f National licensing of repair shops and of at least one master mechanic in each who would oversee the work and vouch for its completion...

...If consumers are wasting, conservatively, one-third of all repair dollars—totaling about $8 billion to $10 billion yearly—obviously some of that bad work will end up in death or injury," he says...

...Some are elaborately documented with copies of estimates and invoices and voluminous exchanges of correspondence with auto dealers, manufacturers, and insurance companies...

...In a series of filmed tests, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has demonstrated that standard 1969 and 1970 model automobiles sustain hundreds of dollars in damage's when driven into a concrete barrier at speeds of five and ten miles per hour...

...However, in their place there was a paint defect on the hood and once the ignition key was turned off and taken out, the car wouldn't shut off immediately...

...It is also good insurance against repair of defects, since service managers often complain that their firms are inadequately compensated by manufacturers for warranty work...

...Senator Hart's bulging correspondence files indicate that this huge industry is the ultimate manifestation of Murphy's Law: If anything can go wrong, it will...

...Since passage in 1966 of the Motor Vehicle Safety Act, which requires auto makers to recall hazardously defective cars, almost thirteen million vehicles produced by domestic manufacturers— about thirty-eight per cent of the domestic production—have been the subject of safety defect notifications in 527 separate recall campaigns...

...While the cost of auto maintenance has approximately kept pace with the cost of living in recent years, the cost of repairs has skyrocketed...

...An increase in economic incentive should attract more men into this area of vital need...

...Others include insufficient spacing between radiators and fans, the loading of auto front ends with such accessory gadgets as power steering mechanisms and air-conditioning condensers, the placement of fender moldings above headlights, disappearing headlights, recessed windshield wipers, wrap-around and tinted windshields, and construction that makes it difficult or impossible to lift or tow a disabled vehicle without inflicting further damage...

...And the insurance industry has contributed by endorsing this system of pricing...

...But the Senator is not unmindful of the fact that auto accidents claim 56,000 American lives each year...

...Mercury, Oldsmobile, and Buick all introduced new models this year that require removal of the rear bumper to change tail lights...

...In accord with the Antitrust and Monopoly Subcommittee's area of jurisdiction, his four series of hearings— some of them still in preparation— have focused on problems of cost rather than safety...

...Any items added to a warranty repair order after customer's signature must be initialed by your service manager...

...Harold MacDonald, the vice president for product engineering at the Ford Motor Company, was quoted to this effect about a year ago in Automotive News: "We haven't looked at the bumper as a safety device because of the large forces involved...

...Beyond that, they disagreed broadly on the extent to which a problem exists, the factors responsible, and the remedial steps—if any—that ought to be taken...

...The manufacturers' cavalier attitude toward warranty repairs has figured prominently in the Hart hearings and other recent Federal investigations...

...Often the dealers also serve as manufacturers' parts distributors to independent garages—an arrangement that independents claim puts them at a competitive disadvantage...

...The price of the lens was $21.95, which was way out of line for a small piece of plastic...

...No corrective action has been reported on about thirty per cent of these vehicles, which presumably continue to roam the roads in their unsafe condition...

...They estimated the paint job to cost $30 at that time...

...It encourages slipshod warranty work...

...Advised by one of Hart's aides that the memorandum "raises some serious questions" and was "likely to be discussed in the hearings," Lund issued a revision within three days "in the interest of clarification and to assure a complete understanding...

...This system appears to encourage the use of new parts rather than the repair of the old...

...Many letters indicated," the Booz, Allen and Hamilton analysis concluded, "that the authors doubted their pleas, Government regulation, or Senator Hart's investigation would result in solutions to the problems they presented...

...Therefore, Lund went on to instruct Chevrolet dealers, "Unless a safety defect is discovered, no warranty work is to be performed' unless requested by the customer and needed...

...Our filmed tests have clearly established the remarkable delicacy of contemporary autos, the substantial lack of effectiveness of present, largely cosmetic bumpers in very low-speed crashes, and the great damage such vehicles sustain even in crashes at jogging and walking speeds," Dr...

...Most letters dealing with this complaint stated that three or more trips were required before the defect was corrected...

...There has been an alarming increase in warranty costs during the past year," Lund wrote...

...In some cases, even after repeated trips to the dealer, the defect had still not been rectified...

...There are about 100 million motor vehicles on the nation's highways...

...Others tell of autos immobilized for months because of inept repairs or unavailable parts...

...Federal standards for uniform bumper heights are to be issued before the end of this year...

...one manufacturer has stepped up his schedule for introducing "repairability" improvements in his cars...

...f About twenty per cent of the writers complained about unsatisfactory workmanship...

...If such expense continues to rise, it could affect the competitive position of Chevrolet and that of the entire Chevrolet dealer organization...

...The letters to Senator Hart come hastily scrawled on school notebook paper or carefully typed on executive stationery...

...Today, a car stripped of bumpers would presumably qualify for a lower rate, since it would not be burdened by an ornamental, costly, but almost useless accessory...

...Senator Hart, who represents the motor state, owns 315 shares of General Motors stock, and faces a serious re-election challenge this year from Lenore Romney, the wife of the "Rambler Man," admits that he does not count the inquiry into automotive repairs among his most pleasant experiences...

...First, he pays when he buys the car for the privilege of owning expensive-to-shape, ostensibly sales-promoting (and, incidentally, environmentally inappropriate) exterior designs in whose rendering the stylist's hand, rather than the engineer's, is wastefully dominant...

...Certainly higher skill levels mean higher performance...

...We know, for instance, that the price of crash parts has risen sixty-four per cent in the last ten years...

...Though various studies have come up with conflicting findings on the role of vehicle defects in accidents, it is generally accepted that more than ten per cent of all mishaps are the result of mechanical failure...

...One example of the letters received by the Senator: "When I first picked up my new car, I noticed several 'bugs.' The hood sprung off its hinges when I was on the road, the doors wouldn't close tight, and the front seat wouldn't adjust or lock in place...

...Even this estimate is probably conservative, since any informal survey elicits a dissatisfaction rate approaching 100 per cent...

...If the dumb engineers saw fit to put the tail light assembly in the car in such a manner that the rear bumper had to be removed to install a lens in the assembly when the original one broke, why should the customer have to pay for this work...

...Some time this fall, the Subcommittee will issue a comprehensive report on its investigation of automotive repairs, and the report will probably be accompanied by legislative recommendations...

...and service becomes —to use an industry expression—'a necessary evil.' " The manufacturers' responsibility begins at the very first stage of the production process—automobile design...

...No manufacturer was exempt from criticism, and no particular complaint appeared dominant to any particular make or style of automobile...

...We consider that our bumpers provide this protection in impact up to two miles an hour...

...To many writers, the investigations of the automobile industry are appreciated, and solutions are hoped for, but there is not much optimism that real solutions will be forthcoming...

...Some may argue that higher wages may mean higher cost for repairs...

...The ignition problem reoccurred and my turn signal wouldn't blink, possibly due to a short in it...

...A revealing example was relayed to the Senator last December by a western Chevrolet dealer, "writing anonymously for fear of reprisals," who enclosed a memorandum to all Chevrolet dealers from Robert D. Lund, general sales manager of General Motors' Chevrolet Division...

...The only thing I have received so far is discourtesy and poor service...

...Sincerely yours, Edward N. Bran ham Since the Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly of the Senate Judiciary Committee began investigating the automotive repair industry about eighteen months ago, Senator Philip A. Hart, Michigan Democrat and the Subcommittee chairman, has received some 7,000 letters of complaint from discontented motorists...

...The National Highway Safety Bureau has estimated that about one-third of the recall defects are design-related, while the rest stem from inadequate production quality control...

...In fact, a Ford Motor Company spokesman recently projected a far higher figure: a total of fourteen million drivers unhappy about auto repairs...

...However, most of the complaints were made against automobiles purchased new by the authors of the letters...

...But most of Senator Hart's correspondents acknowledge defeat...

...The revised memorandum deleted the offending language, but instructed dealers that "if technicians should determine that additional warranty work is required, approval should be obtained from your service management before proceeding with the work...

...The system also encourages the mechanic to install new parts so as to beat the flat-rate time...

...A few relate utterly catastrophic financial—or physical—experiences...

...There was a time, back in the 1920s, when bumpers were optional auto equipment and a prudent motorist could reduce his insurance rates by installing them on his car...

...But what I complain about is the $7.20 charged for removing four bolts and swinging down the bumper assembly and then putting the four bolts back in after the lens was installed...

...Further, the evidence before this Subcommittee indicates that the total cost of repairs seems more directly affected by the cost of parts than labor...

...Last fall, the management consultant firm of Booz, Allen and Hamilton prepared for the Department of Transportation a "confidential" analysis of the first couple of thousand letters received by Senator Hart...

...But he has carried out a thorough and searching investigation, and in the process has shed some rarely revealed light on interesting—not to say bizarre—aspects of the industry that is usually regarded as the prototype of American free enterprise...

...The letters generally reported dissatisfaction with the products, practices, and service in the automotive industry," the report noted...

...William Haddon Jr., the president of the Institute, told the Subcommittee...

...This is not necessarily true...

...Auto Repairs: If anything can go wrong, it will' by ERWIN KNOLL Brighton, Michigan April 8, 1970 Dear Senator Hart: "My complaint concerns the charge for installing a tail light lens in a new Buick...

...This policy, the western dealer told Hart, meant that "if in the normal course of pre-delivery service or regular service a trained mechanic or service manager discovers defective parts or workmanship (that does not relate to safety), we have been instructed by the manufacturer to disregard the defect unless we receive a customer complaint...

...Joseph C. Pilk-ington of Davisburg, Michigan, wrote to the General Motors Acceptance Corporation...

...they write, or "Please do something," or "I feel as though I have been legally robbed...

...The car was brought back to the dealer whom I purchased it from and all three of these defects were corrected...

...The facts, however, are quite contrary: The ratio of "labor" charges ¦—often arbitrarily set by insurers' or manufacturers' "flat-rate manuals"—to actual labor costs is better than two-to-one...

...Some report relatively minor overcharges or misfunctions...

...Consequently, the manufacturer looks to the dealer principally for sales...

...Many of these subsequent trips also proved fruitless and expensive...

...It causes non-warranty repairs to subsidize the preferred rates given to the manufacturers for warranty work and the insurance industry for cash repairs...

...Next, when his vehicle experiences what is euphemistically called a 'fender bender,' he pays again—this time, the many hundreds of dollars required as the cost of replacing such inappropriate parts to undo the damage caused or aggravated by the cosmetic design and manufacture of his vehicle's exterior in the first place...

...If bumpers did their job of protecting automobiles, these witnesses added, total repair bills would be reduced by about $1 billion a year...

...Predictably, each segment of the industry acknowledged a few mistakes or "bad apples," and assigned most of the blame to others...

...beginning next year, both Ford and General Motors have pledged to introduce'bumpers that will withstand impacts of up to five miles per hour...

...In many instances it creates a reluctance on the part of the dealers to do warranty repairs and also results in higher prices for the non-warranty work...

...Because of the apparent high profits associated with the new parts, this benefits not only repair shops but the auto manufacturers, who are also in the business of selling these replacement parts...

...Others told of dealers' unwillingness to replace warrantied parts without charge, or of inability to obtain warranty service in dealerships other than the one that made the original sale of the automobile...

...This year, their owners will spend close to $25 billion—half of it for parts—to have them repaired and maintained by franchised dealers, independent garages and body shops, service stations, and back-alley mechanics...

...another has assigned a mechanical engineer to work with each senior design stylist...

...To date, after more than five trips to have my car serviced, both of these problems still exist...

...What the letters have in common is a theme of anger, frustration, and helplessness—a sense of having been betrayed by that great, infallible technology in which Americans are taught from earliest infancy to have implicit faith...

...Its job is to protect the lights of the car in parking maneuvers...

...H Additional complaints focused on a broad range of problems: poor design, a lack of quality control in the production process, inadequate performance of components and accessories...

...f Creation of a national network of inspection stations equipped with such diagnostic devices to check the safety of automobiles and provide the consumer with an independent analysis of his car's defects...

...At the same time, Hart's aides point out that some of the most common complaints in his correspondence files —all of which are turned over to the manufacturers—have been entirely ignored...

...This is good management practice...

...Until then—and probably into the indefinite future—consumers can collect their estimates, invoices, and hard-luck tales, and bundle them off to Washington...

...Since repair labor charges usually match parts charges at least dol-lar-for-dollar, a "total" repair would cost $15,000...

...f Failure to fulfill manufacturers' warranties was cited by about eleven per cent...

...If the car sustains twenty-five per cent damage, it might as well be scrapped...

...Two weeks later, after deciding to incur this cost myself, I returned and was informed that instead of costing me $30 it would now cost me $60...

...Probably more basic, however, is the control the manufacturer may exercise over the entire system through the flat-rate manual method of pricing and the warranty...

...Aircraft mechanics, electricians, typewriter repairmen, and other skilled mechanics earn one to three dollars more per hour" than auto mechanics, Senator Hart points out...

...What recourse do we have...

...Emphasis added...

...Certainly there are inherent disadvantages to the consumer in this pricing system...

...several were of a kind that might produce serious problems after the warranty expired...

...Computations developed in the Hart hearings indicate that at list prices, "Gentlemen—the answer to our problems and the final triumph of American know-how" replacement parts for a standard $3,500 Chevrolet Impala cost about $7,500...

...The first witness at the Hart hearings, Professor William N. Leonard of the economics department at Hofstra University, put the problem in perspective: "The realities of the situation are," he testified, "that Detroit's income derives largely from the sale of automobiles to dealers and only slightly from dealers' service to customers, due in the latter case from the sale of parts used in making repairs, and indirectly to customer loyalty leading to purchase of the same make car on rebuy-ing...

...However, despite ample evidence that there is enough blame to go around—shoddy and dishonest repair work, unfair insurance practices, inadequate state inspection and regulation—the record points to the manufacturers as the prime culprits in the national auto repair scandal...

...Supposedly they fixed the ignition problem, but informed us rather unpleasantly that they would not repaint the hood for no charge...

...As a result of his hearings, Hart has proposed five reforms that have met with varying degrees of unenthu-siasm from the industries concerned: Development of performance standards for new and used cars—including design requirements to make it easier to use sophisticated diagnostic equipment to detect problems...

...He also said: "Technological solutions are available which would virtually eliminate damage to vehicle exteriors in the very low-speed crashes so common on our highways and streets today—certainly common enough to be anticipated in the design laboratories of automobile manufacturers—and the solution can, at the same time, dramatically reduce the likelihood of human damage at higher speeds...

...Dr...

...Antique Porcelain' "The automobile purchaser today is paying twice for the privilege of owning a car whose front and rear ends are designed to look like French pastries in the ads and showrooms, and to act like antique porcelain or aluminum foil in minor collisions...

...As an estimate, sales of new motor vehicles (with accessories) probably account for nine to ten times the receipts derived from the sale of replacement parts...

...We may be small people, but we are not dumb, and I'll fight this matter to the end," Mrs...

...ERWIN KNOLL is Washington editor of The Progressive...

...Specifically, correspondents cited high charges, needless repairs, and misrepresentation of the work performed...

...Franchised dealers account for about one-fourth of all repair work, though they receive a substantially larger share of the business for late-model cars...

...High labor charges itemized on repair bills have persuaded many consumers that auto mechanics must be among the nation's more affluent citizens...

...By applying a standard commonly used in the television industry—that every letter represents the views of 1,000 Americans—one might conclude that seven million car-owning Americans have had experiences ranging from the unpleasant to the disastrous in connection with repairs to their vehicles...

...If a $3,500 car sustains ten per cent damage, therefore, the repair bill will be not $350 but $1,500...

...Once again I returned to the dealer...

...Why the waste...

...Total auto property damage losses increased by more than eighty-five per cent from 1959 to 1968—three times the increase shown by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for its lump category of auto repairs and maintenance...

...f Funding of training programs to overcome the existing shortage of 70,000 mechanics...

...The customer can't know of this manufacturer's policy and only assumes the dealer or mechanic is indifferent...

...William Haddon, Jr., President of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, before the Hart Subcommitee, March 17, 1970...

...The witnesses who appeared before Hart's Subcommittee—manufacturers, insurers, repairers—were in general agreement on only one point: that there is a nationwide shortage of qualified auto mechanics...

...Another letter: "I realize that all new cars have some bugs, but it appears to me that after not even one year of ownership and some $125 in repair bills, I have become the owner of a 'lemon.' I am writing this letter to you in the hopes that you will somehow be able to help me with my problem...

...Certain crash parts have risen at an even higher rate...

...Subcommittee staff members claim several accomplishments as a result of the hearings: Manufacturers have agreed to raise their payments to dealers for warranty work...