Warranty not worth the ink it was printed with

enjoythistripp

I bought a van from a dealer with a 90 day warranty on the engine and gearbox. I have had several costly repairs done to this van (which I have receipts for), which were not covered bye the warranty. I am not complaining about these, but all these faults will be used to demonstrate the poor overall condition of the van. My complaint is a water leak, which caused the engine to overheat and seize. The dealer would not replace the engine under warranty as he blamed me for "cooking the engine". I had not. He demanded £300 to replace the engine. I went elsewhere and intend to sue him for the replacement costs and labour, the costs incurred in having the broken down vehicle towed home. I am a removal man bye trade, and cancelled around a £1000 of booked removals. I also lost out on many more over the week that i can prove. I intend to sue for this loss of earnings to. I expect to c;aim for around £2000 and chanced upon your website. What is your advice? Have contacted trading standards and am going to send him a detailed breakdown of costs in a reasonable attempt to settle out of court.

Any advice on warranties appreciated

squeaky

This might be a tough one to fight.

The garage are likely to claim that as soon as you noticed a water leak, (or the first time the engine overheated), you should have remedied the situation. Since you drove the van to destruction - they are going to say that the blame for the engine blow-up lies firmly at your door.

About the only defence that you might have to this allegation is IF the engine blew without any previous evidence of a water leak and no engine temperature warning lights, or engine oil pressure warning lights came on. ....?

vuvuzela

Sounds like a business to business transaction and not a consumer one. You might well be better off getting specialist legal advice on your chances of success, this is much more of a consumer-based website.

vax2002

Firstly warranty's are Insurance and insurance is the oldest scam in existence.
The answer to your problem lies in the contract you were given.
Nobody can advise you who has not seen the contract other than in general terms.
How to proceed, gather receipts and an expert opinion upon the cause of the fault.
Get a legal expert to "tax" read the contract, often this has to be translated from legalese to English.
If the Legal expert states the contract covers the loss, you issue an invoice to the insurance company directly as this is who you contract is with, the dealer has nothing to do with it, nor can he claim on your policy, so you are wasting your time.
Give the warranty company 14 days to settle or acknowledge the policy and then issue a money on-line claim with the courts service.
If they dont like it, then they should not sell insurance policies.