The difference in Car mentality

sO... two of the two cars lines (or both) that I deal with are in the process of having air bag recalls. This means the cars come in, the airbag is removed, a new air bag installed, the car leaves, and we send the used "un-exploded" air bag back to the manufacturer sounds simple enough doesn't it? Well that would depend on which car line you are dealing with.

You see we have one car line owned by the Japanese and one car line owned by the Germans. If we added an Italian car line we could change our name to AXIS Motors. Anyway, Air Bags are Explosive, this means they fall into the "Hazardous Materials" category. The Japanese car line, oh let's call them Toyota, because that's who they are, ship the replacement air bag to the dealership with all the hazardous materials stickers, the declaration form, bill of lading, and shipping address sticker and pouch, along with a copy of the set of directions for packaging and shipping. Essentially you put the stickers on the box, call Fed Ex for a pickup and attach the paperwork, job done.  The German line, oh let's call them BMW, send the dealer the airbag, a haz warning sticker and instructions saying to return the airbag using D.O.T. guidelines.  Great, try and find a service to ship air bags, UPS doesn't accept them, Fed-Ex will not ship haz mat unless you have a haz mat account, they reference a third party. That company allows you to ship for 90 days free as an intro. Oh yeah...except you need a contract with a hazardous materials response service. 

So, I find it rather aggravating that we have to spend all the money on contracts plus a Fed Ex online haz mat manager when the only reason we would send haz mat is because the company that supplies no assistance requires we ship the stuff.