I haven’t seen or heard any specifics (i have read the filings and listened in to the hearing) on this topic. So everything below is my (weakly) informed opinion.
Unless the court demands specifics in the plan (I suspect they will not) Van’s will be allowed to handle these “product quality issues” using their business judgement and discretion, subject to their available financial resources, after emerging from Chapter 11 (and paying other creditors).
I am not a lawyer, but I suspect your “claim” should you file one, will be disputed by the company and rejected in the Chap 11 disposition. The company will argue they have fulfilled their obligation to you when you “accepted delivery.” It’s not as if a legal judgement had been issued against the company pre-petition, or any written compensation agreement had been reached. You may have a valid dispute, but the court may well not regard it as a valid unsecured claim. In the best case you’d have an unsecured claim and likely recovery will be very low.
That said: I suspect “new Van’s” (the post bankruptcy going concern) will find it in their best interest to NOT abandon customers impacted by LCP. To do so will impair their reputation and be devastating to new orders which are critical to their survival. If I were Van, I’d work very hard to replace (at cost of shipping only) the “RED” parts that they have assessed as “critical to safety.” To do otherwise would potentially subject individuals to liability (personally) in the event of LCP’s “causing” an injury. Replacing QB kits might be impractical financially, so maybe you’ll get a pile of parts and instructions on how to replace them in your QB assembly. I suspect they will require you to sign something saying you will not use any LCP parts which are replaced by punched parts and waive any liability if you choose to use the “RED” LCP parts anyway.
Huge unknowns in this entire situation, and “new Van’s” (as the DIP) will have a lot of discretion in the process going forward. The best hope in my opinion is substantially improved business management operating a recapitalized firm profitably. Lots of trust will be required, and lots of trust has been destroyed. Very tricky to execute successfully. Unless there is a more generous “white knight” than Van, willing to put more money in to (in essence) purchase the post bankruptcy firm, I don’t see a better alternative to the current plan.
FWIW: I see a lot of incompetence in what has occurred, but no bad faith. I do think Van (in particular) is working to make the best of a very bad situation.
Peter