courtesy car

[michael_jcws]

Hi all,

Need to take my car in to the local BMW dealer, asked for a courtesy car. All well and good, but they want me to insure the car ? is this normal ? insurance company want to charge me £20 for the privalige :scratchchin:

Cheers

Michael

[andy mac]

Surely it should be under the garages insurance?

[2 Smokin Barrels]

...any garage will try & charge extras, the £10/£20 admin thing is becoming more common.

[grass widow]

Yes I have a chrysler, when it goes in, I can either put a courtesy car on my own insurance, or pay I think it's 10.99 a day for theirs.

But my husband had Audi's and he never had that problem. Think it depends on your car and the garage.

[pwig]

Yes that is standard across the industry pretty much.

[off_again]

Increasingly common these days - "cover costs" is what they all say. The main problem I have with all of these courtesy cars is that they are never available! My mileage varies so much that I cannot predict with certainty when my car is due a service - as a result I just cant book far enough in advance.....

[UKBob]

Yep, a tenner at my dealer. Being asked to piss about and sort your own insurance is taking the mickey though.

[MrV]

£12 a day at local stealers ,you might want to see how much your insurance will charge to cover you if ou need it for longer than 1 day

[2 Smokin Barrels]

Is the car watch UK ad on your screen? I tried the free search, and my reg doesn't match my car.

[anniesdad]

Warranty work or a routine service? If it's warranty work then I think it's fair for them to insure the vehicle and take the risk. If it's a service then why should they not ask you to take the risk on your insurance and pay the required "admin" fee. They are after all entrusting their c.£10K car with you, without really "knowing you from Adam".

[Podie]

2 Smokin Barrels said:

...any garage will try & charge extras, the £10/£20 admin thing is becoming more common.

It is becoming more common…. When I was running Ford's I used to get a courtesy car free…. The only request was you return it full with petrol (it was full when they gave it to you)… guess what? People didn't bother… so they ended up putting a charge on it to cover themselves. Same old story… a few spoil it for everyone.

[pwig]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

You are incorrect.

See my comment on the service cost thread for a breakdwon.

[pwig]

anniesdad said:

Warranty work or a routine service? If it's warranty work then I think it's fair for them to insure the vehicle and take the risk. If it's a service then why should they not ask you to take the risk on your insurance and pay the required "admin" fee. They are after all entrusting their c.£10K car with you, without really "knowing you from Adam".

Why should the dealer pay for his insurance if it is warranty work?

They don't get any money for it. They are providing the vechicles as a courtesy. I know in our case, Fiat/Alfa do not give any money to us for courtesy cars.

We charge £5 a day or you can go on your own.

Thats what we have to pay to the insurance company.

[anniesdad]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Then again, they're losing money on having to provide a car in the first place? I'm assuming we're talking brand new cars here?

[pdV6]

Pretty common. The beef you should be having is with your insurance company, really - its a bit stingy to charge you for an extra day's insurance just because you're driving a courtesy car. But they pretty much all do it anyway.

[tonyvid]

I was told this was a new(ish) thing to do with new money rules and financial advisers etc - but, as you say more like a way to make an extra buck. Offords never charge for their SAAB courtesy cars so I don't know why the rest have to. Directline covered me when the MG went for a service at Brown and Gammons, they just faxed the covernote FOC to B&G.

[anniesdad]

pwig said:

anniesdad said: Warranty work or a routine service? If it's warranty work then I think it's fair for them to insure the vehicle and take the risk. If it's a service then why should they not ask you to take the risk on your insurance and pay the required "admin" fee. They are after all entrusting their c.£10K car with you, without really "knowing you from Adam". Why should the dealer pay for his insurance if it is warranty work? They don't get any money for it. They are providing the vechicles as a courtesy. I know in our case, Fiat/Alfa do not give any money to us for courtesy cars. We charge £5 a day or you can go on your own. Thats what we have to pay to the insurance company.

The customer didn't ask to be put in the situation of having to return their car to the dealer for warranty work, so why pay for insurance on a courtesy car that should be exactly that....a courtesy car, free of charge. The dealership are charging the manufacturer for undertaking the warranty work, so I think it fairer to charge the manufacturer for the insurance admin. charge as well, whether you can get this or not is another matter.

If I choose to take a courtesy car that I am not legally obligated to. I would consider it fair to pay for insurance on said courtesy car and to cover it myself, subject to my insurer agreeing to cover it in the first place.

[kerfuffle]

A dealer asked me to insure a car for a test drive once (I was going to take the car for a long weekend); however when I called my insurer they said it was a tricky one as if I insured the car and crashed it, the money would be due to me and I could potentially tell the garage to sod off. When I mentioned this to the garage they quickly agreed to insure the car themselves.

And guess what happened next? A colleague took it for a spin without telling me and it came back after an 'incident'. I never even drove the bloody thing

[anniesdad]

kerfuffle said:

A dealer asked me to insure a car for a test drive once (I was going to take the car for a long weekend); however when I called my insurer they said it was a tricky one as if I insured the car and crashed it, the money would be due to me and I could potentially tell the garage to sod off. When I mentioned this to the garage they quickly agreed to insure the car themselves. And guess what happened next? A colleague took it for a spin without telling me and it came back after an 'incident'. I never even drove the bloody thing

Yes but the insurer will also ask you who is the Owner and registered keeper, to which the answer would probably (is it a contract hire/lease car?) be the garage. I for one, would be very surprised if the car was written off whilst in your possession that the insurer pay you out for the cars value. Part of the total loss procedure is to obtainthe vehicle's documents, which will prove the title to the vehicle and hence the party with the financial interest.

[kerfuffle]

Didn't entirely make sense to me either, but at least it meant I didn't have to insure it, which was just as well given the kerfuffle that ensued.