Warranty Wise - Next steps

jmhansford

I know most people are going to groan when they hear the name Warranty Wise, but in my defence I did not buy it. It came with the car we bought included in the price.

The issue is that 5 weeks on we have had an expensive sudden failure on the car and they have declined the work despite it being a component that is included.

The issue seems to surround the fact that the garage (a specialist on my car) used the word "seized" to describe the fault (as in a moving part is no longer moving). Warranty Wise is trying to say that it is wear and tear and seized components are excluded - however they do not (and could not when asked) give me their definition of seized.

The problem is that I get the impression that they are just trying to wriggle out of paying - which is something a lot of their customers say.

I don't mind putting in the time and spending £70 to put this forward to the small claims court for them to decide. I just wanted to see if anyone else has taken them to small claims and if so whether or not they had an advice.

Thanks,

foxy-stoat

If the issue is 5 weeks from buying it then go to the supplying dealer to sort out - but you have to prove it was like it when you bought it.

What is the seized part and what car is it?

jmhansford

It is a Smart Car (fortwo) and the part was the AC compressor. Thing is that I know it was working for the 5 weeks (given the weather we have been having) so it is an honest failure that could not have been predicted before hand. Exactly the sort of thing the warranty is supposed to cover

mrmechanic

If the compressor has seized, then the bearing that it rotates on must have broken up for it to generate enough heat for it to seize.
This would be a mechanical breakage, even if its just the cage of the bearing that has collapsed causing the heat and should be covered.

jmhansford

mrmechanic wrote: »

If the compressor has seized, then the bearing that it rotates on must have broken up for it to generate enough heat for it to seize.
This would be a mechanical breakage, even if its just the cage of the bearing that has collapsed causing the heat and should be covered.

I completely agree with you - I bet you most mechanics and reasonable people will ..... the problem is that they are not interested in paying out, happy to send out a cover certificate but they refuse to pay out and the more I dig the more I find that they use every trick in the book to try to get out of it.

I am resigned to the fact that if I want them to stump up that I need to find someone (i.e. a court of law) that will force them.

I was just wondering if anyone had successfully done this?

jmhansford

I just thought I would add the ending to this episode - just in case it helps anyone else.

I ended up going to the original garage who sold me the car - The guy was very helpful and after initially taking the same stance as Warranty Wise did listen to me and did is own checking before coming to the same conclusion as me (i.e. Warranty Wise should pay out).

I must have caught them at the right time as I gather there were lots of other instances of Warranty Wise trying to screw his customers over and they were all coming back to him to complain.

After a few weeks of going back and forth Warranty Wise eventually paid out only because the garage threatened to close their account and move their business else where (I was told this was over £3K a month they spent with Warranty Wise)

So .... Warranty Wise would never have paid out on their own and I was lucky in finding some leverage on them through the garage I bought from.

I would not ever recommend ever dealing with Warranty Wise. They are unreasonable and even when paying up they were pretty useless (wrong details on paperwork, paying the wrong people etc.)