A Customer Vehicle came into our repair facility no different than dozens of others to diagnose a customer concern. Our business diagnosed the vehicle per Manufacturers (OEM) published repair procedures. Great Lakes Warranty Co (GLC) was the contacted, per their published procedure, to discuss the customer concern and the applicable OEM repair process per published service information and Technical Service Bulletins (TSB). GLC immediately disagreed with the diagnosis and would not acknowledge the OEM procedure and in turn, would not agree on next steps for repair.
In the mean time, GLC dispatched an Independent Field Inspector (FI) on site to our service facility location. Upon completion of the FI's assessment, the FI agreed with our findings and verbally indicated the next step repairs would be consistent with the OEM's published information and procedures.
In follow-up with GL on the following day, the report supposedly emailed to GL found and recommended a different course of action which agreed with GL's original statements in which I would not concur.
At this point, I totally disagreed with GL's position and with their recommendation for repair. The repair was inconsistent with every aspect of the situation and at best, was only going to be a temporary repair which would not repair the customer vehicle. GL was not acting in the best interest of the customer and was only planning to delay the symptom reoccurrence t ill the expiration of the warranty.
In the end, I repaired the vehicle per OEM published information and procedures. The repair was 100% successful. I then informed GL of the confirmed repair to the customer vehicle and they refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the OEM procedure and as a result, would not authorize any payments on the claim. So the customer invested in an extended warranty in which was 100% applicable, but unable to utilize.
At the end of the final conversation, GL threatened to place our business on a so-called Red List, which means, according to the GL's claims advisor, a facility who their business would refuse to do business with in the future and would report our inexcusable behavior to other extended warranty and insurance companies around the country.
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