New car broken - AGES to fix

nej

Hi all,

Our new (4 months and 3,500 miles) car broke down whilst on holiday in Cornwall (we live in Surrey), the day before we were due to go back. It came with Mitsubishi breakdown cover, and initially they were great at sorting out getting someone to us. We had to do a £65 taxi ride to get back to our holiday place but they'll cover that. They then said we'll get a hire-car the next day by 10am.

Great, I thought. I told them I needed an MPV or large estate car as we have a LOT of stuff (enough to fill the boot of our large MPV). No problem they said, someone from Enterprise rent-a-car will call you first thing in the morning.

Well, I'll miss out the entire saga here, as it would go on for about 10 pages, only to mention that it took hours to sort something out and the manager at Mitsubishi Breakdown was a complete uncaring, smarmy, stupid, idiotic, cretinous... you get the picture. Enterprise were also spectacularly useless. Eventually we had to get a taxi to Bristol airport (over 2 hours away!) to get a suitable car (which didn't exist in the end, luckily they had something else) which was £165 that they will also cover.

Anyway, they took the car to the local dealer in Torquay. The local dealer then said they couldn't look at it for over a week so I asked them to move it to our local dealer in Surrey. They did this and this morning I spoke to the dealer, who has now diagnosed the problem and says it will take 8 DAYS just to get the required part.

By the time I get my car back, I'll have been without it for about 21 days. We've still got the hire car which they are paying for, but I don't think that's the point. If I'd wanted a Zafira, I'd have bought a bloody Zafira!

So we're going to be without our car for 3 weeks (assuming the part they're getting does fix it), yet I'm still paying for it, and the insurance and the road tax and the depreciation etc for this time. Given the car is £400 or so per month to us (before insurance, tax etc), that's £300 we've paid but not been able to use.

Does anybody else think I should be entitled to some sort of compensation here, or is the fact that they've not left us carless because we've got a hire car good enough?

C_Ronaldo

you could ask, i see what you mean about paying ins, tax etc for the car but you cant use it

kuohu

For my money it does sound like good customer services from Mitsubishi. It is obviously an unfortunate occurance for your car to break down whilst you were on holiday but it does sound like they are reimbursing every out of pocket expense that you encounter.

If a particular part is broken, and it takes 8 days to get that part from Japan, then there probably isn't much else that they can do about it. If it's broke - it's broke.

Is your £400 a month a loan repayment (so you're still working towards owning the car outright whether it is in the garage or not) or do you hire the car (so you shouldn't have to pay whilst it's not available)? I'm wondering what you want compensation for.

nej

The monthly payment is the car finance.

I want compensation because I'm paying for a car that I'm not able to use, plus the other fixed costs (like I said, the road tax, insurance etc). If the car was a couple of years old, I'd understand a bit, but it's 4 months old with less than 4000 miles. I simply don't expect a car of that age and usage to go wrong. I also don't want to spend 3 weeks driving a Zafira. It's not as good as my car, bluntly (apart from the fact that it works!! :-). Plus, the stress and inconvenience of being stranded with little being done to help.

Also, the part takes 8 days because it's out of stock; this isn't my fault. It is their fault for not maintaining adequate stocks.

Interestingly I posted about it on Honest John, and somebody replied saying they have a fault with the same part (although different symptoms).

I can't call the Customer Services "good". I have to chase them for everything, I often don't get calls to inform me of progress, and the breakdown assistance manager was the WORST person I've EVER spoken to on a helpline.
I still don't know for sure that the hire car was extended or not yesterday, as they didn't call me back to tell me if it was or not. I'm playing dumb and assuming it has been.

taxiphil

I know it's causing you a huge amount of hassle, and I can sympathise with that having been through a similar nightmare myself, but it does sound like Mitsubishi are better than most car manufacturers for providing a hire car for such a long time. Most car manufacturers would never do that.

I had a brand new Citroen which broke down when it was a few months old. Citroen's policy was to only provide a hire car for ONE DAY, regardless of how long it took the dealer to fix my car, and the dealer wouldn't give me a courtesy car. My car was off the road for 30 days and I had to fund all my alternative transport costs out of my own pocket. When I asked Citroen how I was supposed to get to work, they suggested using buses and trains.

I'm not sure you'd have grounds to argue for loss of road tax or insurance, etc, as the use of the hire car is already compensating you for this.

deanos

taxiphil wrote:

I'm not sure you'd have grounds to argue for loss of road tax or insurance, etc, as the use of the hire car is already compensating you for this.

Yes i agree, if you had no hire car you would have a case.

nej

Thanks for your thoughts, guys.

I'll probably try anyway - no harm in a letter. Certainly the manager guy needs a complaint.