Hi,

I own a stock 2010 Unlimited. When I bought it I also paid for the Chrysler Ultimate Care Plus extended warranty/service contract that includes coverage for maintenance for up to 5 years or 60,000 miles. This means that I could go to any Jeep dealership for maintenance every 3,000 miles and they would perform the services listed in the contract for each interval.

My problem began this week when I went in for the final 60,000 mile service. Everything went fine until the next day when I got a call from the service advisor saying some of my services weren't covered because the services for the 60,000 mile interval had been claimed when I went in for the 48,000 mile service.

I looked at my 48,000 mile receipt and found that I had paid for some recommended but non-covered services that day. My service advisor had recommended some things called Brake Flush, Power Steering Flush, and Fuel Induction/Throttle Body Service. I was initially going to be charged for all three but she told me that the Brake Flush would be covered by the contract so she only charged me for the other two. Under the 48,000 mile interval in my contract one of the services is listed as "Change brake fluid if the vehicle is used for trailer towing", so I thought she must have justified the Brake Flush service with that. Apparently she made a claim on the 60,000 mile services instead. According to the service contract company any service can be requested at any time during the contract and if its done before its due it just won't be covered later.

Now the dealership wants to charge me for replacement of the engine air cleaner filter and changing the automatic transmission fluid and filter which are both listed in my 60,000 mile interval. These services aren't on my 48,000 mile receipt so I don't understand how they could be considered as previously claimed.

The service advisor at 48,000 miles doesn't work at the dealership anymore and the advisor I'm dealing with now has been very patient and understanding. The bill was going to be $285 but he lowered it to dealership cost and the bill is now only $116.99. It isn't even that much money but I don't see how I'm liable for anything. No where in my 48,000 mile receipt does it say "you authorize us to make a claim against your 60,000 mile maintenance in order to cover something else". I also didn't submit the 60,000 mile claim at 48,000 miles- the service advisor did that. It doesn't seem like there are any extra services on the 48,000 mile receipt that aren't listed at the 48,000 mile interval of my contract. What should I have done differently? How is this my fault?

Today I went to see the service advisor and together we called the service contract company and they didn't seem to care. No matter how we explained the problem, their response was "the 60,000 mile service was claimed and there's no further service to be claimed" and that its between me and the dealership. I also talked to Jeep Customer Care afterwards and they said to talk to the service contract people.

I don't blame the dealership for this at all. The person who created this problem no longer works there and the advisor who wants me to pay has been completely patient and professional. I definitely don't blame him at all and understand that he's not getting anything out of this either. What frustrates me the most is the way the service contract people are completely indifferent to this situation. I could understand if my 48,000 mile receipt mentioned 60,000 mile services on it, but it doesn't. In good faith I went in every 3,000 miles expecting covered services to be performed and when asked if I wanted recommended but non-covered services I always either paid for them or declined. I don't feel like I owe anything but I don't know if its worth fighting.

Hopefully there's people on this board that can offer more insight into this and hopefully this can serve as a warning to others to be careful of how your services are claimed under these maintenance contracts. Thanks for reading. If you made it this far you deserve a

 

Let me summarize (because I may misunderstand what you wrote): Services specified for 60K miles were performed at 48K miles. This is documented by the dealership. Then, at 60K miles they performed those same services again. After performing the services (which SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN NEEDED SINCE THEY WERE PERFORMED AT 48K MILES!), they checked their records and realized that you had already claimed the services. It seems to me they should have checked their records first, explained to you that since those services were performed at 48K miles, they were not needed. Or, if you or they felt they were needed, that you'd be charged since the maintenance agreement didn't cover additional instances of those services. Dealership screwed up; they should eat it.

 

Yep, this totally looks to me like the dealerships fault and not the service contract companies.

 

X2 Absolutely...

 

That's the way the service contract people see it. The part that doesn't make sense to me and that I don't agree with is that my 48,000 mile receipt doesn't include the services I'm now being charged for. The service advisor said "they're not the same but in the same category".

I don't think the 48,000 mile service advisor did anything intentionally wrong like make a fraudulent claim and somehow pocket the difference but I also don't think I did anything wrong or should have known. I told the current advisor that I'd pay him if he showed me a paper I signed at 48,000 miles that mentions 60,000 miles. All the receipt has is codes that are meaningless to me but that apparently represent a 60,000 mile claim and names of services that seem to coincide with the 48,000 mile interval and that aren't the same as what I'm now being charged (a relatively small amount) for.

Here's a part where I have some responsibility. I went to the same service advisor for many years and she knew I had maintenance covered. It wasn't until the last couple of visits that she had left and I started seeing different service advisors. When I went this week for the 60,000 mile service I dealt with an advisor I'd never dealt with before. I showed him the services on the 60,000 mile interval of my contract and he said that's what would be done but I didn't say "this is a maintenance contract" because I wasn't used to explaining it. After the work was done he called me and said the bill was $285 and then I told him my maintenance should be covered and usually I don't pay for anything unless its recommended but not covered. He called the service contract people that day and they somehow gave him the impression everything was okay so they gave me my vehicle with no hesitation. The next day I got the call about not being covered due to the earlier 60,000 mile claim at 48,000 miles but that I would only be charged dealership cost for parts which reduced the bill to $116.99. Even the service advisor said exactly what you did. If he had initially known I had maintenance covered he would have cleared it first and found out about the problem before the service was performed. However, I'm not sure if this is true since they cleared the services that day anyway, they might have made that mistake if they had been asked at any point that day, before or after the services were performed.

I really feel that the service contract people don't care at all and aren't interested in investigating any further or correcting any possible errors. They're a broken record about the 60,000 mile claim being complete. The amount of money involved probably isn't worth these people's efforts. Based on my experience with the service contract people, even if the bill was hundreds of dollars, it would probably be easier for the dealership to take me to small claims court or send the debt to collections than to deal with the service contract people.

 

No one I've dealt with in the Jeep Corporate Entity seems to be interested in this perspective. Even if the claim was submitted wrong or processed wrong no one seems to want to investigate that (which is why I keep mentioning that I don't see any non-covered or duplicate 60,000 mile services on my 48,000 mile receipt). I think that if I've done nothing wrong and couldn't have known and couldn't have done things differently than my continued good will towards the dealership and the company should be worth $116.99 or even $285.

 

Later today I'll post pictures of all the documents I'm referring to so you guys might be able to make sense of it.

 

Although I agree that the service contract company sucks, I think that you might have signed up for responsibility for payment of the invoice the moment you authorized the work. I would have expected the dealership to review your service record and see that the 60k items had been completed only 12k miles previously, but it sounds like they're willing to meet you halfway on this.

Again, service contract company sucks, but it sounds like the dealership is trying to work with you and strike a balance. Personally, I'd pay the dealership for the work they did.

Good luck.

 

I agree , pay the dealer to keep your good relationship intact .This is a Cautionary Tale about extended service contracts, they are "for.profit " ,which means someone else comes out on the minus end. Assume nothing, read the fine print , document everything . You made it to the finish of the contract relatively unscathed. You "won".

 

I don't blame the dealership at all since the person who created the problem is gone. I'm also hoping there are posters here who have more knowledge of how this process works and may even offer a better fix than whats on the table.

Thanks.

Right now I'm having trouble accepting that I owe anything at all and am resisting paying on principle. If I do pay I won't go back to that dealership so the relationship is probably severed anyway. Even though I don't blame the dealership or the current service advisor I still wouldn't want to be thinking about this experience every time I'm there.

I work in a job where I directly and indirectly put people in this position all the time and they often owe tens of thousands of dollars. The difference is that when I notify someone about owing money I've already done a complete investigation that includes collecting all documentation, researching references, and also determining all possible options so I can reasonably answer as many possible objections as I can think of and offer possible solutions and recourses. When I notify someone that they owe money its because they owe money and they're not going to be able to deny it or contradict it. The person that I'm notifying may not be happy but they should be satisfied that they understand their situation and what they can do about it. I think about it from their perspective and I'm really good at it. They shouldn't be having to make multiple phone calls to different entities on their own trying to reconstruct the whole thing themselves (although they can if they want to). I realize this isn't the service advisor's job and he doesn't really have time so instead we both spent several days doing our own separate investigations because I was simply expected to cough up a credit card number the day he gave me the bad news. Its like most of these people can't even put themselves in my position. I doubt any of them would just give their credit card number without being shown where the duplicate services were performed. Thats where I'm at right now. Where are the duplicate services? If the claim was done wrong then fix the claim.