What are NuTone MPP Warranty Products?

The NuTone MPP Products Warranty Program started in 1986 - MPP stands for Maximum Performance Product.

The essence of the MPP Warranty Program was that NuTone products that were part of the MPP Program would be covered for Parts, Labor and In-Home Service, to the original purchaser of the product for as long as they lived in the home.

Originally NuTone's intention was to include only parts into the MPP Warranty, but due to a mistake in how the warranty was written, it also included labor and in-home service.  This mistake was not noticed until the beginning of 1987, at the annual NuTone Sales Meeting in Cincinnati.

The annual Sales Meeting was a gathering of all NuTone Sales Reps from around the country.  By the time of the meeting, the MPP Program had been in effect for almost one year and it had become a great sales tool for both the NuTone Sales Reps and NuTone Dealers.

Consumers loved the idea of buying products that would be covered for as long as they lived in their homes.  NuTone wanted to trim back the warranty to its original concept, but the outcry from the Sales Force was loud and clear, and the MPP Warranty was left as was.

The majority of MPP products were in the higher level product models, entry level models and builders models were typically not covered by the MPP Warranty.

By the late 1980's through the mid 1990's the was a building boom going on and NuTone products were the favorite of customer home builders, home remodelers, and home owners alike.  I can tell you that it was a great time to be not only a NuTone Dealer, but a NuTone Service Center as well.

It was not uncommon to perform 10-15 in-warranty service calls per week.  NuTone Service Centers are paid a flat rate on a per call basis.  If a Service Center was well organized and if they could complete each call in one trip, there was money to make.

In the early 1990's NuTone had a change in leadership and its new president was on a cost-reduction mission.  From a Service Center's point of view, the quality of products was slipping and the number of MPP Warranty calls was on the rise.  It was said the at the peak of the MPP Warranty program, NuTone was spending somewhere around 5 million dollars a year on warranty service.

With the increase in warranty calls, there was also an increase in the number of false in-warranty claims made by both homeowners and less than honest Service Centers.  One of the requirements of the MPP Program was homeowners had to provide Proof of Purchase to the Service Center to validate the warranty claim.  To combat the number of false claims, NuTone began to require that copies of the proof of purchase to be sent in with the billing from the Service Call.  There were also a number of Service Centers that were dismissed due to false claims.

There were limitations in the MPP Warranty. It did not cover cosmetic issues like discolored fan grills or Intercom Door Stations that weathered from being outside.  The original MPP Warranty  specifically addressed failures "due to manufacturing defects" which implied that normal wear-and-tear would not be covered.  In most cases it was the Service Center's job to make the determination, as we were the gate keeper of the MPP Warranty.

By 1994 products that had been originally covered by the MPP Warranty were starting to be replaced with newer products.  These new products were covered by a new warranty program, the PPP Warranty.  This was a much more limited warranty; basically it was five years for parts and two years in home service. 

By 2000 the PPP Warranty was eliminated and replaced by a Two year warranty, which covered parts and in-home service.

Around 2010 a decision was made by the management of Broan-NuTone LLC that ended the MPP Warranty Program once and for all.  Service Centers were told that no claims for MPP Warranty repairs would be paid any longer.  This decision was based on the wording in the five different MPP Warranty statements that were included with NuTone products over the years.  The part of the warranty statement that implied or stated that normal "wear-and-tear" was not covered was enough justification to end the program.

Since the oldest MPP Products were then 24 years old and the newest were 12 years old, how could any problems be from a manufacturing defect?  While this is a reasonable concept, the implementation was handled very poorly.  Many calls for MPP service ended up with the customer stating loud and clear "I'll never buy another NuTone product again" then the phone would click as they hung up. 

By 2010, the number of MPP requests were so small and the majority of them were from people that had used the MPP warranty before, and most of them revolved around Intercom equipment. The cost of the warranty was probably much smaller then the cost to the company's reputation by discontinuing the program.