Marketing executive director Tom Kieffer said in a conference call today that the program applies to all of Cummins' cooled exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) engines purchased by March 31 of next year.
The program guarantees that if the company's cooled-EGR engines fail for any reason, whether the failure is related to an EGR component or not, the company will have the engine repaired in 24 hours or less. If it does not make that deadline, Cummins will pay for a rental vehicle to cover the carrier during the engine downtime, he said.
The guarantee program is in effect through the end of 2003, Kieffer added, and customers must have their engines service through Cummins' network of 200 service centers to receive the guarantee.
Director of Communications Amy Davis added that Cummins plans to offer three new extended warranty packages for its 2002 emission-compliant engines, in addition to the base warranty of 100% labor, parts, and consumables coverage for two years/250,000 miles.
The first package extends Cummins' base warranty coverage to three years or 300,000 miles. The second extended warranty package provides internal engine component coverage, excluding routine maintenance items, for four years or 400,000 miles, coverage which applies to all EGR components as well.
The third package offers five years or 500,000-mile internal component protection, again excluding regular maintenance items, with a $500 deductible after the original two-year/250,000 mile warranty expires. The prices for those extended warranty packages ranges from $800 to $1,800, Davis said.
Both the uptime program and extended warranty packages are designed to bolster confidence in Cummins' cooled-EGR engines, said Kieffer, and to encourage sales of those engines from the fourth quarter of this year through the first quarter of 2003.
"We want to give fleets confidence to purchase 2002 products," he explained. "These engines will perform well, and we now guarantee it. So if customers have concerns, with this program, they should fear no more."
