Albert and I left the Tiffin accounts-payable office at the same time the other morning, each of us with our paid receipt in hand. “How’d ya do?” he asked jovially…a warning sign that he had “done” better than I in an unspoken contest consistently played between us Tiffin owners and the Tiffin service center, where winning or losing is decided by how little is paid for the same service. The offsetting factors are usually what percentage of the work can be claimed, legitimately enough for Tiffin to accept it, as being under warranty. If Tiffin agrees the work is warranty, then you don’t pay for that work. If they don’t, you do, except when you don’t, as I will explain.

The weapons used in this battle are legion. Did you identify an issue to Tiffin during the warranty period, but not bring the coach in? Better, do you have proof of that…an email you sent, or a letter? Best, did THEY offer a commitment back to you via email or letter or fax? Is there a recall on something? Did they do the same thing for somebody else at no charge – and can you prove it? Did you whine at Bob Tiffin and get him to take pity on you?  Do you have an extended warranty that might pay for something? (Extended warranties are useless, I think…I own one – paying almost $3K for it – and so far have been unable to use it for anything because of the restrictive conditions and the deductable.) We all look for an edge…but it creates a constant source of tension between them and us and, while Tiffin is, given they are one of the rare motor home manufacturers still even in business and providing warranty service to begin with, quite nice about the whole thing, they are likewise somewhat less giving than they apparently (this being our first time here and therefore relying on the historical experiences of others) are more profit-center-oriented than they used to be.

This profit-centeredness is attributed by many of the Tiffin coach owners towards Tim Tiffin (the son) taking charge of the service plant and displacing in this role Bob Tiffin (his father and founder of Tiffin Motor Homes). Tim apparently is setting his own brand on the service side and in the doing wants to insure that the service biz. pulls its weight, but it’s a rare business these days that isn’t tightening its belt where it can, to mix weight-oriented metaphors a bit. This all said, we-all get that doing business means something a little different today even to a famously service- and customer-oriented group like Tiffin, and those of us that have a strong business background get this completely and want them to be here….and thus are willing to pay our fair share.

So there is the push and pull of it. We (all consumers on the macro level, Tiffin customers in general, Irene and I in particular) have our own economic crises to address and we have no government bailout likely. So we want to spend as little as possible. But Tiffin is providing work for 1,200 or more people (in previous counts I underestimated this number, having heard only a factory and manufacturing component number closer to 400-500, so if you’re remembering a past post, don’t bust my chops, OK?) and their responsibility to them is to continue as a profitable business…and, again, we, if we’re being sensible, want them to be here, because obviously they are not here for us if they are not here at all.

Albert and I apparently see things differently, however. An example:  he and I had both had our coaches’ fronts repainted under warranty. This by itself would be an expensive item any time; in my case the bill for that work was over $2,000 and I think Albert’s was at least that. And both of ours were to be covered under warranty and neither of us expected any push-back from Tiffin about this, and neither of us had gotten any grief, either…expectations met, no problemo.

However, there is a gray-area part-two to the front-end-painting scenarios. This is the re-doing of the protective coating that must be applied over the front end paint when complete. Both Albert and I have 2007 Allegro Buses (this being one of Tiffin’s more up-end models if that matters…thought I would just brag on myself for a second). In 2007 Tiffin was trying an unfortunate experiment called Armor Plating. This involved spraying a rubberized compound over the paint, and eliminated the installation of a physical film that was previously applied by hand, a film made by 3M and usually referred to simply by the manufacturer’s name, e.g.  Q.  “What coatin’ ya’all got on yer coach?”, A. “3M!”.

When I met with Bob Tiffin earlier last week and asked him about the coating scenarios, he himself described the Armor Plate as an “experiment”, although he stopped short of calling it unfortunate…those were my words. But unfortunate it was and is. It, not to put too fine a point on it, doesn’t work. At all. When I showed up here and we-all did a front-end check on our coach, Tiffin identified 127 rock-dings in the paint, most visible, a few not yet, none of which should have been there (not that ANY protective shield can be entirely fool- or even rock-proof. But, as he said, “3M” had its limitations, too, and now they didn’t even offer Armor Plate OR “3M” but have gone to yet another, more durable product/service called Diamond Shield. Diamond Shield’s both a product and service because the product, a very rugged yet very clear film, is installed only by their own people, who work in two separate bays in the Tiffin service area. And it is very pricey. Per Bob, they upgraded the cost of the 2008 and beyond Allegro Buses to compensate for Diamond Shield’s almost $1,200 price tag. And, he said, the approach they were using with the 2007 customers was to re-paint the front-ends of their coaches if they wanted that and then to credit them the cost of the previous, relatively inexpensive Armor Plating…$300…against the Diamond Plate, so that customers would be “encouraged” to upgrade. Also per Bob, inadvertently reinforcing something his service manager had previously told me, all customers are being treated the same here, the implication being that whining about paying additional money for protection we thought we had bought wouldn’t get us a free ride.

Therein lay my personal dilemma. I didn’t want to pay for the Diamond Coat, but I wanted the additional protection. Bob did offer that they would replace the Armor Plate, if I wanted that, but didn’t recommend it – the same deal, as I already said HE said, he had offered others with the same problem. Not much of an alternative, thinking back on the 127 rock-dings previously mentioned. So, after kicking around alternatives with Irene, I did what I was told the many other 2007 Allegro Bus owners did…I went ahead and had the Diamond Shield installed and agreed to pay the additional $895…which, just prior to meeting up with Albert, I had done.

But, as implied earlier, Albert had taken another approach. He had worked around the system. He had the front-end repainted and then…without having a recorded conversation about it….”allowed” the coach to go from the “paint” step to the “Diamond Shield” step…the coach being moved, with only his tacit approval, from the paint bay to the Diamond Shield bay sub rosa, as it were. This allowed Albert, in effect, to claim that Tiffin had never consulted with him about the Diamond Shield installation. And, by extension, it allowed him to argue that, if he wasn’t consulted about it, he didn’t feel he had to pay for it. And it allowed him to walk out of the office with a receipt totaling charges paid of less than $100, whereas I paid $2,400, because he applied this philosophy, with variations to fit the circumstances, to a number of other things as well – not just the $895-worth of Diamond Shield.

Malevolent Avoidance, my descriptor of Albert’s negotiation technique, is obviously a successful approach to getting away without paying, and worked, if not paying was the only objective, for Albert. But I have issues with it, and I’ve already mentioned them. Let’s cut to the chase; it isn’t honest. It takes money away from Tiffin. And it encourages the “Them vs. Us” competition, that, while inevitable, isn’t positive. So, truth be know, while I’d like to keep my money if I can, I’d rather be honest with Tiffin and pay for the services they provided.

Of course I’d have to be completely naive to feel that Tiffin was totally honest with me in the exchange. After all, they (Bob and his Service Manager) both told me that all customers were paying full-boat for the upgrade, and my entire exposure to other customers with the same problem as I (this being Albert) is 100% in favor of them getting it done for free because they used Malevolent Avoidance, or other tactics when I didn’t and, I suppose, because Tiffin then decided not to try to out-argue the point. I had offered to split the cost of the service with them and they had refused; seems if they were giving it away to some they could have compromised with me. Thus, in the unspoken contest I described above, I can’t help but feel somewhat like I lost – but at least I can view my loss from the moral high ground.