Am I being unreasonable??? [warranty]
Discussion
Hi, I bought my DB9 from an Aston Martin dealership with the "peace of mind" of a warranty, car was serviced just prior to collection and warranty included for 12 months. 11 months later, car goes in for service 11 months later at Bamford Rose at which point they raise points of issue, suspesnion dampeners leaking and front suspension coil boken in 2 and heavily rusted, the car has done 4/5000 miles since my purchase and the coil indicates broken prior to this time according to the guys as Bamford. No problem I though maybe they missed it at prior service, still just put it through the warranty.....
issues highlighted at service in an email from Bamford Rose
"The conclusion of the 140 point inspection we conducted on your car revealed the following;
1 LR Damper unit leaking fluid
2 RF Damper unit leaking fluid
3 LF coil spring broken ( badly corroded at break point, been broken for some time)
4 LR coil spring badly corroded
5 Oil leak from front engine cover/ A bank cam cover
6 Lot of oil pull over in air filters (PCV valves)
As I understand, your car is under warranty, ans as I understand the warranty policy, it will only pay out on broken / faulty components and not components just in bad condition.
The spring clearly falls into this category and has been broken for some considerable time due to evidence of corrosion. But I would also say a leaking damper is a failed part, not a worn part, meaning items 1/2/3 should be replaced under warranty. Whereas items 4/5/6 are worn but not failed and probably won't be covered by the policy."
Emailed details to dealership 7th september
"Nick/Martin,
Following our conversation where my mirror oxidisartion wasn't covered, I had them replaced with the MY09 mirrors at Bamford Rose and whilst there had my next service performed. A few points came out of this which certainly indicators deem should be covered under the warranty so please respond.
items 4-6 I would have thought wouldn't have been an issue considering you had inspected the car prior to my purchase although indicators suggest maybe this inspection wasn;t quite as close as it should have been....
Please provide me details on how I get at least points 1-3 covered under the warranty (bearing in Mind in am located in Colchester) and also provide a response to point 4-6 which should have failed the inspection that was performed by you prior to purchase speaking the quantity of oil in points 5 and 6 indicate that this issue had been ongoing for far greater than the 11 months since I purchased it."
Full Response on 10th september
"As per conversation the address to your local Aston Martin dealer is
Brentwood,
2 Brook Street
Brentwood
CM14 5LU
0844 371 3850
They will be able to look into your warranty concern and are authorised to carry out any repaire.
Kind
Regards
"
So car booked into Grange for warranty work as authorised to carry out the work as per the exact worded email from original dealership. and I turn up on the 8th with the car.
Phone call from grange later that day to inform me the policy expired on the 3rd and therefore as nothing was at that time registered as an issue with the warranty company that it is not covered - if they had know it would have been ok.
So who's at fault here? myself for not ensuring that I got the car to an Aston dealership with a service window sooner (within the 3 weeks between my telling them and the policy expiring?) or the dealership? the way I see it they inferred that there was authority to go ahead with the Warranty in there response. Having spoken to a guy there today he is saying I should have known that I needed to get an authorised dealership to inspect the car before the end of the policy in ordere to start a warranty claim - I thought by telling them I had started a warranty claim and that taking it to the dealership was the next stage in that process.
Would be interested in people's opinions on this as I am fuming (and also skint having moved house last week.)
Pete
issues highlighted at service in an email from Bamford Rose
"The conclusion of the 140 point inspection we conducted on your car revealed the following;
1 LR Damper unit leaking fluid
2 RF Damper unit leaking fluid
3 LF coil spring broken ( badly corroded at break point, been broken for some time)
4 LR coil spring badly corroded
5 Oil leak from front engine cover/ A bank cam cover
6 Lot of oil pull over in air filters (PCV valves)
As I understand, your car is under warranty, ans as I understand the warranty policy, it will only pay out on broken / faulty components and not components just in bad condition.
The spring clearly falls into this category and has been broken for some considerable time due to evidence of corrosion. But I would also say a leaking damper is a failed part, not a worn part, meaning items 1/2/3 should be replaced under warranty. Whereas items 4/5/6 are worn but not failed and probably won't be covered by the policy."
Emailed details to dealership 7th september
"Nick/Martin,
Following our conversation where my mirror oxidisartion wasn't covered, I had them replaced with the MY09 mirrors at Bamford Rose and whilst there had my next service performed. A few points came out of this which certainly indicators deem should be covered under the warranty so please respond.
items 4-6 I would have thought wouldn't have been an issue considering you had inspected the car prior to my purchase although indicators suggest maybe this inspection wasn;t quite as close as it should have been....
Please provide me details on how I get at least points 1-3 covered under the warranty (bearing in Mind in am located in Colchester) and also provide a response to point 4-6 which should have failed the inspection that was performed by you prior to purchase speaking the quantity of oil in points 5 and 6 indicate that this issue had been ongoing for far greater than the 11 months since I purchased it."
Full Response on 10th september
"As per conversation the address to your local Aston Martin dealer is
Brentwood,
2 Brook Street
Brentwood
CM14 5LU
0844 371 3850
They will be able to look into your warranty concern and are authorised to carry out any repaire.
Kind
Regards
"
So car booked into Grange for warranty work as authorised to carry out the work as per the exact worded email from original dealership. and I turn up on the 8th with the car.
Phone call from grange later that day to inform me the policy expired on the 3rd and therefore as nothing was at that time registered as an issue with the warranty company that it is not covered - if they had know it would have been ok.
So who's at fault here? myself for not ensuring that I got the car to an Aston dealership with a service window sooner (within the 3 weeks between my telling them and the policy expiring?) or the dealership? the way I see it they inferred that there was authority to go ahead with the Warranty in there response. Having spoken to a guy there today he is saying I should have known that I needed to get an authorised dealership to inspect the car before the end of the policy in ordere to start a warranty claim - I thought by telling them I had started a warranty claim and that taking it to the dealership was the next stage in that process.
Would be interested in people's opinions on this as I am fuming (and also skint having moved house last week.)
Pete
The trouble is you are not building a great relationship with the dealer by having your car serviced by a competitor and independent. You should have made sure the car went to the dealer for at least inspection before the warranty ran out. Just telling them there's a problem isn’t enough…….. also don’t think you can blame the supplying dealer 11 months after purchase that there may have been a problem with the car prior to delivery. ......I think unfortunately this may be a case of get your cheque book out
I did actually try to get the car work I wanted done by the dealership, but as I wanted a V12V steering wheel fitted to my DB9 (I wanted cruise control) I was told this wasn't possible though Bamford Rose were happy to go ahead and do it. Surely the they are authorised to carry out any repair indicates authority being granted??
going through the original paperwork, the footer on the car sale details says 12 months aston martin warranty with another piece of paper mentioning pendragon prestige warranty, the actual warranty that I only received a PDF about on Monday says it is with Warranty Management Services a totally different company, I was never provided their details or phone number and thought as I had told the dealership that it was not needed.
I would have expected the warranty to cover the items reported during the warranty period, not when the work was done. It's not your fault the garage couldn't attend to it right away.
I've been in exactly the same situation with my Audi. I reported some warning messages intermittently coming up and booked it in. The warranty expired between me reporting the issue and it being investigated, but it was still done under warranty (just as well as it needed some fairly major engine/ECU work!).
I think the dealer had to fight my corner a bit though, but what swung it was that I had a photo of the warning messages on the instrument console which also showed the date and mileage, so could prove the problem occurred during the warranty period. Your report from BR and email prove the same, so it should be covered.
I should add that it was an "extended" warranty so with a third party company, not Audi.
I've been in exactly the same situation with my Audi. I reported some warning messages intermittently coming up and booked it in. The warranty expired between me reporting the issue and it being investigated, but it was still done under warranty (just as well as it needed some fairly major engine/ECU work!).
I think the dealer had to fight my corner a bit though, but what swung it was that I had a photo of the warning messages on the instrument console which also showed the date and mileage, so could prove the problem occurred during the warranty period. Your report from BR and email prove the same, so it should be covered.
I should add that it was an "extended" warranty so with a third party company, not Audi.
not according to warranty management services and stratstone wilmslow are saying they assumed I would get it booked in and seen before the end of the month (which was only 3 weeks away) I told them I only worked in the country half the time and had also moved home in the period between so it wasn't a fair assumption..... They still think it's my fault for not getting it booked in and sorted in the 23 days before the policy expired.
That sounds like b
ks!
If I have an accident in my car, then a week later renew with a different insurer, it's the insurance that was in place at the time that would pay.
The warranty is effectively an insurance policy and should cover faults that occur during the policy period, not just work that is done during the period. Ask them this - if a mechanical fault occurred on the last day of the policy, so there was no chance of getting to a garage on the same day, would they then not cover it? If so, you're paying for cover they're not providing!
ks! If I have an accident in my car, then a week later renew with a different insurer, it's the insurance that was in place at the time that would pay.
The warranty is effectively an insurance policy and should cover faults that occur during the policy period, not just work that is done during the period. Ask them this - if a mechanical fault occurred on the last day of the policy, so there was no chance of getting to a garage on the same day, would they then not cover it? If so, you're paying for cover they're not providing!
Neil1300R said:
If it was the extended warranty (i.e a 3rd party warranty, but branded Aston) why couldn't BR deal with the issues / warranty claim?
Unfortunately I was under the impression it was an AM warranty, didn't get the policy doc until after the policy expired! So that's what I told Bamford Rose 
sales literature for the care said approved Aston martins with Aston Martin Warranty"They will be able to look into your warranty concern and are authorised to carry out any repaire."
This means that the dealer that you are being referred to is an AD & is authorised to carry out any repairs by AM, not that any warranty claim has been pre authorised with regard to carring out your specific repairs.
I think you have misunderstood the email.
You cannot call/email the AD with a list of problems discovered by an indy & expect them to agree the claim.
They will need to see/inspect the car & decide from there.
If you knew when the warranty expired, you should have got the car in to the dealer before then.
That you were out of the country or moving house is not really their concern.
As the owner, its up to you to read & understand the T&C's / procedure in the warranty pack.
The list of car issues you have could have occurred any time within the last 11 months, & doubt you'll get much joy from AM.
Try to appeal to the supplying dealers good nature & if that fails, suck it up & get BR to sort it & you'll have a great car & move on.
This means that the dealer that you are being referred to is an AD & is authorised to carry out any repairs by AM, not that any warranty claim has been pre authorised with regard to carring out your specific repairs.
I think you have misunderstood the email.
You cannot call/email the AD with a list of problems discovered by an indy & expect them to agree the claim.
They will need to see/inspect the car & decide from there.
If you knew when the warranty expired, you should have got the car in to the dealer before then.
That you were out of the country or moving house is not really their concern.
As the owner, its up to you to read & understand the T&C's / procedure in the warranty pack.
The list of car issues you have could have occurred any time within the last 11 months, & doubt you'll get much joy from AM.
Try to appeal to the supplying dealers good nature & if that fails, suck it up & get BR to sort it & you'll have a great car & move on.
darreni said:
"They will be able to look into your warranty concern and are authorised to carry out any repaire."
This means that the dealer that you are being referred to is an AD & is authorised to carry out any repairs by AM, not that any warranty claim has been pre authorised with regard to carring out your specific repairs.
I think you have misunderstood the email.
You cannot call/email the AD with a list of problems discovered by an indy & expect them to agree the claim.
They will need to see/inspect the car & decide from there.
If you knew when the warranty expired, you should have got the car in to the dealer before then.
That you were out of the country or moving house is not really their concern.
As the owner, its up to you to read & understand the T&C's / procedure in the warranty pack.
The list of car issues you have could have occurred any time within the last 11 months, & doubt you'll get much joy from AM.
Try to appeal to the supplying dealers good nature & if that fails, suck it up & get BR to sort it & you'll have a great car & move on.
Smartest post I've read in a while This means that the dealer that you are being referred to is an AD & is authorised to carry out any repairs by AM, not that any warranty claim has been pre authorised with regard to carring out your specific repairs.
I think you have misunderstood the email.
You cannot call/email the AD with a list of problems discovered by an indy & expect them to agree the claim.
They will need to see/inspect the car & decide from there.
If you knew when the warranty expired, you should have got the car in to the dealer before then.
That you were out of the country or moving house is not really their concern.
As the owner, its up to you to read & understand the T&C's / procedure in the warranty pack.
The list of car issues you have could have occurred any time within the last 11 months, & doubt you'll get much joy from AM.
Try to appeal to the supplying dealers good nature & if that fails, suck it up & get BR to sort it & you'll have a great car & move on.
petecowie said:
not according to warranty management services and stratstone wilmslow are saying they assumed I would get it booked in and seen before the end of the month (which was only 3 weeks away) I told them I only worked in the country half the time and had also moved home in the period between so it wasn't a fair assumption..... They still think it's my fault for not getting it booked in and sorted in the 23 days before the policy expired.
You can hardly blame them for you inability to get the car to them before the warranty ran out......sorry but im with the dealer on this one....the items are not madly expensive.
michael gould said:
You can hardly blame them for you inability to get the car to them before the warranty ran out......sorry but im with the dealer on this one....the items are not madly expensive.
I disagree with the above!
IMO, you informed the dealer of the issues within the warranty period so the warranty should stand.
Apparently they made no reference to needing to get the car in before the warranty ran out either, so it was fair for you to assume that as you'd reported the problems during the warranty period they would be covered.
I also repeat the point I made before - if a fault occurred right at the end of a warranty period there'd be little or no chance of getting it seen to before the policy expired. So does that mean the policy you've paid for isn't for 12 months, but for 12 months minus however long it would take to get the car into a dealer?!
The warranty is for 12 months, you reported the issue during the 12 months, so the cover should surely stand!
IMO, you informed the dealer of the issues within the warranty period so the warranty should stand.
Apparently they made no reference to needing to get the car in before the warranty ran out either, so it was fair for you to assume that as you'd reported the problems during the warranty period they would be covered.
I also repeat the point I made before - if a fault occurred right at the end of a warranty period there'd be little or no chance of getting it seen to before the policy expired. So does that mean the policy you've paid for isn't for 12 months, but for 12 months minus however long it would take to get the car into a dealer?!
The warranty is for 12 months, you reported the issue during the 12 months, so the cover should surely stand!
maybe I just present all the facts to citizens advice and let them make a call, This was honestly a way of my finding out if I was completely at fault here or if it's partially then I think some form of offer from the originating dealer rather than there current attitude would have been appropriate. That said Grange of Brentwood have been absolute stars and would definitely use them again.
Pete
Pete
I'd check the warranty T&C's before trading standards.
On most main dealer used cars i've bought in the past, the extended warranty terms state the car can only be serviced at an approved main dealer. Failure to do this would void the warranty.
I'm not sure if the Aston extended warranty works in the same way, but it would be worth checking.
On most main dealer used cars i've bought in the past, the extended warranty terms state the car can only be serviced at an approved main dealer. Failure to do this would void the warranty.
I'm not sure if the Aston extended warranty works in the same way, but it would be worth checking.
petecowie said:
wasn't aston warranty in the end, hence the issues, and serviced within the required time.
Thanks to everyone for their opinions on this, good to get independant advice
For me you both done mistake, you not taking it straight to an AML dealer and them, not calling you to urge you doing so, or not taking your letter or date of contact for a claim, ""They will be able to look into your warranty concern" this is not cool.Thanks to everyone for their opinions on this, good to get independant advice
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