Manufacturers are increasingly refusing longer-term, out-of-warranty claims as more fleets run older vehicles, the Association of Fleet Professionals (AFP) has reported.
The problem is particularly impacting van fleets, many of which are now operating into six, seven and eight years, and the AFP has warned of a range of claims issues that are creating “intensive debate” between manufacturers and vehicle operators.
Paul Hollick, APF chair, said the pandemic and subsequent vehicle shortages had forced large numbers of fleets into extending their replacement cycles substantially, which is now generating a series of questions around maintenance and longer-term claims.
“Manufacturers have historically tended to honour out-of-warranty claims on a goodwill basis if parts failed within recommended replacement schedules,” he explained. “Now, we are starting to see instances of these being refused for what look like debatable reasons, even if the vehicles in question have ostensibly complete service records.”
Hollick pointed to the current example of a widespread issue with wet cambelts on certain Ford diesel vans. The original recommended replacement for these was 10 years and 150,000 miles but Ford recently changed this to six years and 100,000 miles, not just for new vehicles, but the entire production run.
The AFP said the change to the replacement policy several years after these vehicles had been sold appeared to be an attempt to remove responsibility for further failures.
“It seems a definite move away from the goodwill approach, meaning that thousands of vans operated by AFP members are affected by the revised recommendation and need to have their cambelts changed right now. All of this places the cost onus very firmly on fleets that have arguably done nothing wrong.”
Hollick added that rejected warranty claims, alongside other rising maintenance costs, could skew the cost benefits of not replacing older vehicles.
“The argument for running older vehicles is essentially that while keeping them on the road is expensive, it outweighs the cost of a replacement vehicle. If manufacturers begin to refuse claims of this kind, the maths behind that thinking may start to shift.”
The AFP also warned that the ZEV mandate, which came into force this year and requires 10% of vans sold by manufacturers to be zero-emission, was another factor in vehicle replacement decisions.
“The rate of change stipulated by the ZEV mandate means fleets are often making choices not between replacing an older diesel van with a newer one, but with an electric vehicle. There are complex decisions to be made about balancing the cost of keeping the older vehicle on the road with an EV that is probably less operationally efficient.”
