MANN+HUMMEL Aftermarket Brand Receives High Praise

BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Mich., Feb. 27, 2006 -- A world-renowned, independent product testing and assessment firm recently awarded MANN+HUMMEL's aftermarket division with a certificate for excellent customer service and product quality.

The award was presented to MANN-FILTER by the German Technical Inspection Authority (TUV) Saarland after the conclusion of an extensive European customer satisfaction survey. MANN-FILTER sells more than 2,200 different air, oil and fuel filters and filter elements and is the aftermarket brand owned by MANN+HUMMEL, a development partner and original equipment supplier for the international automotive industry.

TUV awarded MANN-FILTER an overall grade of 1.56 (good). The TUV seal of approval is awarded only to companies that receive a minimum rating of "good" by their customers.

"This is an excellent result for the business-to-business sector and is a testimony of the consistent, high-quality products and services offered by the company," noted the TUV testers in the study.

In the study, 766 workshops and dealers assessed MANN-FILTER on its product quality and up-to-date, informative, user-friendly catalogs, as well as its punctual and defect-free deliveries. Forty-eight percent of respondents rated MANN-FILTER's products and services as "very good," and a further 48.8 percent rated the company as "good." This led to an overall customer satisfaction grade of 1.56, equivalent to a "good" rating.

"The outstanding result achieved by MANN-FILTER for services and product quality reaffirms our strategy of offering top-quality products and providing outstanding service to our original equipment manufacturer and aftermarket customers," said Manfred Wolf, general manager of filter elements and systems for the MANN+HUMMEL Industry and Trade Division. "Our customers can be assured that they can continue to expect world-class products and services in the future."

The best grades for MANN-FILTER were for being defect free (a 1.38 grade) and punctuality of deliveries (1.56), followed by information content (1.67), up-to-dateness (1.75) and user-friendliness (1.79) of its catalogs. The large number of available product variants and the trade-friendliness of the packages also were noted in the dealer satisfaction survey.

Customers rated MANN-FILTER's products as having "good" value for the money. According to TUV results, the company showed strong results in all the important criteria.

"The products are high quality," the study said. "Deliveries are punctual and display hardly any defects."

Another noteworthy study result is that 97.3 percent of respondents said that they would recommend MANN-FILTER products to others.

The MANN+HUMMEL Group is an international company. In 2005, the company achieved sales of approximately $1.6 billion. The MANN+HUMMEL Group employs about 9,300 people at more than 41 locations worldwide. The company develops, produces and sells technically complex automotive components such as air- filter systems, intake-manifold systems, liquid-filter systems and cabin filters for the automotive industry, and filter elements for vehicle servicing and repair.

For general engineering, process engineering and industrial manufacturing sectors, the company's product range includes industrial filters, filter systems and materials-handling systems and equipment. MANN+HUMMEL's customers come from a large number of sectors, with series production for the automotive industry occupying a key position. Further information about MANN+HUMMEL can be found at http://www.mann-hummel.com/ .