There are times when a product stops working and needs to be returned. Our warranty program was established for those situations. Sometimes, though, a product is returned not because it’s faulty but because it’s not been applied correctly or maintained adequately. Remy’s Reliability Center in Taylorsville, Mississippi, helps distinguish between truly defective products and ones that have an issue that isn’t the result of design or manufacturing. The center is responsible for the administration of the warranty agreement between Remy and its customers.
“We use the warranty improvement initiative to continuously improve our product so that we are delivering zero defect to our customers,” says Rae Gold, Director - Global Customer Quality. “We use our Remy Reliability Center in Taylorsville to provide input to our warranty improvement initiatives.”
“We do the warranty analysis on the product return from the customers to determine if it’s a warrantable or non-warrantable failure,” says Tim Stevens, Reliability Center Manager.
The technicians all have an electronics degree and each has about 15 years of experience with Delco Remy products. Many started with Remy in the manufacturing of the product.
“I have a highly skilled set of technicians,” says Eric Watkins, Reliability Center Supervisor. “We do the best at what we do as far as root-cause analysis to satisfy our customers’ needs.”
“Remy dedicates a lot of time to ensure that when we’re conducting analysis and adjudicating a warranty claim with the utmost integrity,” says Gold. “We do that because we want to develop trust with our customers and ensure that if we’re denying a claim that it is a legitimate denial and that we haven’t missed anything.”
- Customers return product to the Remy Reliability Center.
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- Every part is assigned a unique lab number.
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- The part is sent to the alternator test area or the starter motor test area.
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- The product is tested using production testers like those used in Remy’s production lines around the world.
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- Even if the product passes the test stands, it's analyzed thoroughly by a skilled technician. The technicians perform visual inspections, conduct resistance checks and also disassemble the product in order to determine if it is a warrantable or non-warrantable claim.
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- The customer receives a response within 30 days, although response times are generally much quicker at about 10-14 days.
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- If a product is warrantable, the claim is processed and customers are reimbursed. If the claim is denied, the customer can read the technician’s explanation for the denial. If there is visual evidence, the technician also will attach photos to the claim documenting the findings.
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