Weblogs to Help Cut Auto Warranty Costs?

Sections: In the Press Aug 30th, 2005 7 Comments

There’s no word on whether MINI will be using a system like this but it’s fascinating nonetheless (from Reuters):

IBM is set to give details Tuesday about plans to sell sophisticated search technologies allowing automakers to cut warranty expenses, which cost the car industry about $14 billion annually.

Automakers could cut warranty claims 5 percent by using such technologies, which go beyond the “keyword” searches used by consumer Web companies and which mine a variety of information sources such as repair records and Web logs, or blogs, IBM said.

Such searches could reduce the 260 days it typically takes for a report of a mechanical problem to reach the engineer who designed the faulty part, said Linda Ban, global automotive leader at IBM’s institute for business value in Southfield, Michigan.

[ IBM to help carmakers cut warranty costs ] Reuters

(Thanks Timothy)

It would seem to some degree that MINI monitors sites like MotoringFile for this purpose currently. The immiediate example that comes to mind was the hood rubbing issue we helped shed some light on a few years back.

[ MINIUSA Releases Service Bulletin for the Hood Rub Issue ] MotoringFile

[ Whoa, What's This? ] MotoringFile

Written By: MF Reader

http://www.michiganmini.com Ryan

Very cool!
http://nemini.org GMINI

Excellent! Anyuthing to keep things just like the below from happening. http://www.nemini.org/Forums/viewtopic/p=66444.html#66444
http://www.CarNutGarage.com CarNut

Could also be used to locate and track people who might be using their cars in competition events, thus voiding their warranty, but they don’t mention that.
http://nemini.org GMINI

could also be used to track people who tend to make more waranty claims than average…
Bruce

My first thought on reading the headline and first lines of this story was that car manufacturers hope to cut warranty costs by searching weblogs for owners self-reporting potential negative behavior with the cars while under they were under warranty. (e.g. they auto-crossed/track day’d their cars, or used cheap gas, or some other “forbidden” activity). Yes, I must be paranoid, because my first thought was manufacturers looking for clever ways to weasel out of warranty claims.
O(=^=)O Capn

Bruce That’s for sure GMINI Your link doesn’t work.
mataku

hm.. sounds scary. But would there be a realistic way for them to track down who the actual owners are? most people use screennames and such, I doubt they would go as far as tracking IP or anything like that.

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