Quick question. Do the dealers make money on warranty repairs? I'm wondering how happy a dealership would be to do the warranty repairs even though I bought the car from a different dealership across town (it's only a matter of locality, the place I bought the car has treated me well thus far).

 

They make the same amount of money as on anyone else. The difference is that Nissan (or maybe Nissan's third party warranty issuer / or insurance - not sure how Nissan works) picks up the tab.

Since a dealership is an independent sales unit (owned by individuals, not by Nissan), it still charges the same amount, its just that you, as a new car buyer, are not charged with any fees.

Hope this helps. By the way, that's why they are nice to you when you come in for warranty work, hehe, they're still getting paid.

 

Dealerships HATE warranty work. They make much more money on a COD job. Yes they do get paid for warranty work but its billed out very low to nissan ,like 1/2 the price parts and labor..
I used to be a service advisor for Infiniti.
The reason they are so nice is because of something called C.S.I
(Customer Satisfaction Index). This is a rating they get when you fill out that survey you get in the mail. BTW they take this survey VERY VERY serious and people get FIRED for getting a "GOOD" report or a GOOD CSI rating.. On their survey, "good" is 4 on a scale of 1-5...5 is excellent..this is what they need, a 5. Thats why they are so nice.

 

I'd heard they are only allowed X hours to complete a certain repair so I figured they wouldn't be quite as enthusiastic about doing warranty repairs because of this. More or less confirmed by shil01. I'll drag it across town to where I bought it in the event any work needs to be done until they give me reason otherwise. We have 4 dealerships within 35 miles of each other so it does open things up a bit. 2 of them however are complete crap (at least imo). The same week I bought mine for 1600 under MSRP, the goofs at the other dealership were still quoting me a $2995 market adjustment for their starting point. Guess that's why they had 03 inspection stickers and this was the last week of July.

 

I agree with the shil01. They do get paid, but at a lower rate. However, I thought that they bought the parts at cost, and if used for warranty work, they get a refund from Nissan. As for labor, they get paid only slightly above their own cost.

 

Some dealerships are VERY busy in the shop. For them the warrantee work is a nuisance since it is billed at a lower rate.

But a dealership garage with "spare time" will be happy to get the warrantee work because it is better than doing no work at all.

Unfortunately everyone tries to go to the good dealers, so the good dealers are also the busy dealers. Sort of ironic.