Tech Warranty work

[woodman1]

Here's an interesting twist to having warranty work done. We were on the road last year and had an issue that required service. Since our RW was under warranty and we were on the road, we elected to have an RV tech do the work rather than find a dealership and avoid potential inconveniences that RV dealerships are known. According to RW, the tech needed to be authorized to do service work. I might add that I had continuous dialogue with the RW people on this. Once everything was authorized, the service work was done and then you pay the tech for the work. Following that, we submitted the bill to RW. It took about 6-7 weeks, but we were reimbursed entirely from RW. I'm thinking all's well. Interestingly, I just received a Miscellaneous Income 1099 IRS form from Keystone for the amount I was reimbursed. I now have to claim this as income, as does the RV tech from the check he received from me. Of course, I would guess I can deduct the amount on my tax prep, but it's not an even exchange, because deductions are not dollar for dollar. So this is what happens when you look at a convenient way to deal with warranty work, rather than using a dealership.

[spindrift]

WOW...thats messed up! It deserves a call to RW in order to right that ship.

[hoosierguy]

That's insane. I have never heard of such idiocy. You don't claim warranty work on a car as income.

So, does that mean that any time you pay out of pocket for service work, you can deduct that amount on your taxes? DON'T HOLD YOUR BREATH!!! HaHa!

[thomas861]

Well at least you got reimbursed.

We had to have a hot water heat replaced while on the road a little over a year ago. When I called Redwood we were told we had to take in to our dealer. We went back and forth over this for a while. Since we are full timers, even if we were near the dealer, it would sit on their lot for a month or two waiting for them to repair it. Finally told them they had to do better than that. They did finally agree to reimburse me for the replacement and labor. They asked that the service tech send them a copy of the bill along with photos of the hot water heater when it was removed as a condition of the reimbursement. (It was leaking and they wanted a photo of the damage) This was done and about a month later I received an email from Thomas Woodall requesting I fill out some info for the 1099 they would have to send me. I called and spoke with him about this since I thought the request was strange. He explained that it was required to reimburse so I sent the requested info and verified that he had all he needed to pay me. He responded that they did. About a month passes and no check. I called and left a message for Mr Woodall but the call was returned by a guy named Mark. Mark says that Mr Woodall had left the company and he was taking his place. After looking into the matter he asked if we had sent the water heater to them. I explained that wasn’t asked for, only the invoice and photos of the defective heater. He said he’d try to get the claim pushed through but didn’t. Somewhere in the middle of all this it appears that Keystone began handling these matters for Redwood. Bottom line is 14 months later no reimbursement and likely no hope for one.


But...the 1099 thing is still strange. As I said I called and asked about it but never really got a good explanation. Since I never got paid, I never got one. But what about all the warranty work that was done by the dealer. Do they get 1099s with their payments for doing the work ? Doubtful.. I love an explanation if someone has one.

[atom ant]

I received two checks for warranty work from Redwood, but I never got a 1099 for it. I wonder if you can claim the cost of repair as a loss?

[Jim & Mary]

This must be a new Keystone policy, we submitted a suspension repair on the road for reimbursement. We haggled over this for about a month, and as soon as I mentioned giving the then Redwood president Jim Lazzarino a heads up, received a phone call from someone else that they had "reviewed the claim and were sending full reimbursement". No mention of this as taxable income or sending a 1099 or anything like that. Never heard another word until the check came from Crossroads.

[atom ant]

I think Redwood went ultra-tax conservative - Back when I was on the board Andy Cripes was talking to me about how to release the suspension brass bushings for purchase if found not to be warrant-able. He said they absolutely could no longer retail out parts like they had been prior to Tiara RV as an outlet, because they got in a bit of tax trouble by not collecting individual state tax on sales sent directly to the RV owner.

[markw]

The whole 1099 thing is just screwing over the customer. It seems they are trying to discourage people from wanting reimbursement. Or, they have no idea what they are doing.

Mark

[atom ant]

I really think it's the latter