GM wants to peer into your engine remotely to detect problems early —- and save itself a bundle of warranty money.
June 12, 2006 (Press Release) --
GM wants to peer into your engine remotely to detect problems early —- and save itself a bundle of warranty money.
For all the griping that General Motors does about the rising cost of health care, consider that the automaker spent as much on vehicle recalls and warranty repair claims worldwide last year — $5 billion — as it spent on health insurance for its 1.1 million U.S. employees, retirees and their families.
Now GM is trying to do something about those costs with an unusual ally: its own OnStar subsidiary, the wireless satellite service that can open your car door when you're locked out or send an ambulance when your airbag deploys. Since last September, OnStar has been offering GM owners a monthly email message summarizing the health of their vehicles based on 1,600 diagnostic checks done remotely. The optional emails, available as part of OnStar's basic $17 monthly service, alert owners to everything from the simple need for an oil change to a serious safety warning like a faulty airbag sensor. One million of OnStar's four million subscribers have signed up for the email service so far.
For GM, the service offers an early heads-up on problems. Sometimes manufacturers don't learn of a quality issue until after a customer goes to the dealer with a complaint and the dealer ships the faulty part back to the factory. The process can take three to six months. Meanwhile, the defect keeps showing up in other vehicles, driving up the cost of GM's warranty claims and potentially putting drivers at risk. In extreme cases, GM must recall tens of thousands of vehicles.
But OnStar's virtual diagnostic service provides immediate data that can give engineers a jump on potential quality issues before customers even notice a problem. One example: In 2005 OnStar detected and fixed a problem in the electronic ventilation system in GM's 2006 full-size SUVs. It's even testing the ability to fix software-related problems remotely.
GM has already been using OnStar's diagnostic capabilities to spot problems in early versions of new vehicles. Robert Ottolini, GM's executive director for product-development quality, says GM has avoided $100 million in warranty costs by catching problems before vehicles were shipped to dealers. "Every day they can trim out of the time between when a problem is detected and when it is corrected saves $1 million," estimates Kevin Reale, automotive research director for AMR Research in Boston.
Source: http://search.msn.com
Posted by Joann Muller
For all the griping that General Motors does about the rising cost of health care, consider that the automaker spent as much on vehicle recalls and warranty repair claims worldwide last year — $5 billion — as it spent on health insurance for its 1.1 million U.S. employees, retirees and their families.
Now GM is trying to do something about those costs with an unusual ally: its own OnStar subsidiary, the wireless satellite service that can open your car door when you're locked out or send an ambulance when your airbag deploys. Since last September, OnStar has been offering GM owners a monthly email message summarizing the health of their vehicles based on 1,600 diagnostic checks done remotely. The optional emails, available as part of OnStar's basic $17 monthly service, alert owners to everything from the simple need for an oil change to a serious safety warning like a faulty airbag sensor. One million of OnStar's four million subscribers have signed up for the email service so far.
For GM, the service offers an early heads-up on problems. Sometimes manufacturers don't learn of a quality issue until after a customer goes to the dealer with a complaint and the dealer ships the faulty part back to the factory. The process can take three to six months. Meanwhile, the defect keeps showing up in other vehicles, driving up the cost of GM's warranty claims and potentially putting drivers at risk. In extreme cases, GM must recall tens of thousands of vehicles.
But OnStar's virtual diagnostic service provides immediate data that can give engineers a jump on potential quality issues before customers even notice a problem. One example: In 2005 OnStar detected and fixed a problem in the electronic ventilation system in GM's 2006 full-size SUVs. It's even testing the ability to fix software-related problems remotely.
GM has already been using OnStar's diagnostic capabilities to spot problems in early versions of new vehicles. Robert Ottolini, GM's executive director for product-development quality, says GM has avoided $100 million in warranty costs by catching problems before vehicles were shipped to dealers. "Every day they can trim out of the time between when a problem is detected and when it is corrected saves $1 million," estimates Kevin Reale, automotive research director for AMR Research in Boston.
Source: http://search.msn.com
Posted by Joann Muller
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