Because a Ford dealer in rural Minnesota and one in urban Miami will sell a different mix of vehicles and experience different types of warranty claims, the 126 Report doesn't simply compare warranty expenses. Instead, the report tells a dealership how its warranty-claiming practices compare to those of other Ford dealers in the same region, and identifies worrisome trends. If a dealership reads the 126 Report carefully, it can, for example, find out if cars are coming back because repairs weren't done right the first time. Maybe, given a high incidence of ignition repairs, the shop needs more training on ignition systems. The trouble, says Jansen, is that not everyone reads the printed, tabular report carefully.
Most dealers have other important business to worry about, such as selling cars.
A dealer who loses focus on warranty expense control may look at the warranty trend report only when he gets in trouble. Though Ford recommends that dealers graph the data so they can spot trends more easily, not all dealers have the time or resources to do that. Jansen's crew just made tracking warranty trends a whole lot easier, thanks to an innovative update of the 126 Report. The new version isn't on one sheet of paper. It's on the Web.