The team that review these concerns at the corporate level are usually correct in their determination of the root cause of the issue. The times when they get it wrong are usually the result of the dealer providing bad information or submitting poor quality photos.
The decision are based off of the time that the issue was first noticed and the type of concern. They also track issues, so if they see the same “Non-warrantable” concern occuring across multiple vehicles in the same location, they will investigate with engineering and change the status of the concern to warrantable. A great example would be the 02-05 Explorer tailgate appliqué cracking; it clearly looks like impact damage, but it was actually a faulty part that affected many vehicles.
In the case of your concern, can you feel the crack with a finger nail? If so, their determination is most likely correct; however, how did the panel become overflexed without any impact damage? Are there signs of panel misalignment that may have contributed to the panel
flexing and cracking the paint? Are the fasteners that hold the panel on all present and properly torqued? This is where the dealer can go to bat for you and reply to the prior approval team with any relevant additional information that may change the decision in regards to the warrantability of the issue. As you mentioned, perhaps your selling dealer might be more supportive.
I still question the ceramic coating. Without knowing the company or type of product they applied, how can we be 100% sure it’s not a contributing factor? Maybe you can get that information from the dealer.
