Why is air con not covered by service or warranty in this day and age.

BOWFER

mobileron said:

Sounds like he is a tight git.

They'll build a statue of him outside MSE towers

niktheguru

I haven't had my air con investigated yet. But have had this issue with another carsin the past (toyota yaris), where the garage says it needs "regassing" but there is no obvious leak, and then proceed to want to charge for this. On a car no older than 5 years (bought from new), and yes i use the air con regularly. If its something i've done thats caused it to fail then i'm happy to pay. But if its just stopped working because of poor design or a stone chip, i'm less happy about this. I've had other cars where the air con would work for years without any problems.

I've also been stung with this stone chip argument before, this year on my less than one year old egolf, the radiator fluid was critically low. I topped it up as advised and it was low within 24hrs. Was investigated and told that a stone chip into the radiator casued a leak and would cost £800 to replace (most of the charge is labour), which I had to pay. I don't see how you guys can compare a "stone chip" with dropping a phone down a toilet etc etc. The stone chip is through normal day to day driving, not dangerous driving, not an error. The garage goes "yeah, its just bad luck". Surely the radiator should be better designed to avoid such "bad luck", particularly for a piece of equipment that is supposedly covered/ protected......its different to a windscreen or tyre which is exposed to the surface so is fair game.

AdrianC

niktheguru said:

I've also been stung with this stone chip argument before, this year on my less than one year old egolf, the radiator fluid was critically low. I topped it up as advised and it was low within 24hrs. Was investigated and told that a stone chip into the radiator casued a leak and would cost £800 to replace (most of the charge is labour), which I had to pay. I don't see how you guys can compare a "stone chip" with dropping a phone down a toilet etc etc. The stone chip is through normal day to day driving, not dangerous driving, not an error. The garage goes "yeah, its just bad luck". Surely the radiator should be better designed to avoid such "bad luck", particularly for a piece of equipment that is supposedly covered/ protected......its different to a windscreen or tyre which is exposed to the surface so is fair game.

No, it's not at all different.

Radiators need to have air pass over them as the car moves forwards - and if air can get through the grille on the front at the rad, so can a stone.

Aircon condensers are in front of the radiator, so they get cool air through them before it goes through the radiator.
Remove the front bumper of a typical modern car, this is what you have... The radiator and aircon condenser.


If a stone took a headlight out, would that be a warranty claim? No. So...?

And before you say "can't they put fine mesh in front to stop the stones" - it would get blocked...

facade

The usual reason it wont blow cold with no sign of any leaks is a clogged expansion valve.  I've had two go, after only around 3000 hours running on each. I think it is debris from compressor wear.  I even bought a new valve for the Renault Nissan but it is a couple of days work to fit it, so I bought one of those microfibre cloths on a stick to wipe the windscreen with instead of fitting it

born_again

fred246 said:

Sounds like he bought a car with a warranty and thought it would be useful.

They are as useful as the T/C of them.

In some cases they are written on toilet paper 🤣

ontheroad1970

fred246 said:

The OP didn't mention that they had dropped their Aircon down the toilet. Sounds unlikely.

And as usual you miss the point when it doesn't meet your very narrow point of view.  The point is that warranties are limited by many different factors.  One of them is impact.  If you damage your phone, it is not a manufacturing defect.  Warranties cover manufacturing defects only.  That's the point.  If air con stops working as the result of a manufacturing defect then it WOULD be covered.  If the cause is any form of  impact, then its failure isn't due to manufacturing defect, but due to impact damage from stone chips, or other impact damage.  

Of course this isn't the fault of the customer, but neither is it due to negligence from the manufacturer, nor due to a manufacturing defect.  Ergo, it isn't covered under the warranty just the same as if you drop your phone into water.  The failure simply isn't due to manufacturing fault.  So, isn't covered by a manufacturing defect warranty.  

fred246

People on here who seem obsessed by warranties seem to think that they can avoid unexpected bills if they have a warranty. Obviously not the case. Makes me realize you are better not having warranties. If there is a problem just fix it yourself.

fred246

My radiator went and I popped a new one in £72. With a warranty it sounds like it would have been a right palaver. It was leaking. Was it caused by a stone? I really haven't a clue. Does it matter? £800 if you have a warranty? Lot cheaper without.

BOWFER

fred246 said:

People on here who seem obsessed by warranties seem to think that they can avoid unexpected bills if they have a warranty. Obviously not the case. Makes me realize you are better not having warranties. If there is a problem just fix it yourself.

Accidental damage or negligence isn't covered by a warranty, to say you're better without one is just silly.
I'm sure even you can think of examples where someone has been very glad to have a warranty.
Cars go wrong, sometimes in a big way - even new ones.
Unless you don't know anyone with a new car, of course.

Petriix

AdrianC said:

Petriix said:

If the systems were designed intelligently then I'd be fine leaving it on auto. But I have a tolerance of +/- a few degrees and don't feel the need to dry out the air. Much of the time, the outside air is perfectly good without any heating or cooling (let alone both at the same time).

If I turn it on to auto at 18 degrees, it will initially use lots of energy to make it exactly 18 degrees. I'm happy at anything between 17 and 22 degrees so it really is a waste of energy.

So set it to 20 or 21 or 22 when it's warm out. 17 or 18 or 19 when it's cool out.

What it needs is a setting to avoid the extremes rather than keep to a target temperature.

Every single climate I've ever used works far harder when the temp inside the car is far from the set temp. As they get closer, it works less hard. They take temperature and humidity into account.

Of course, it's entirely possible some manufacturers still haven't got that right after three decades of climate control systems being mainstream...

It would be even more tedious to have to keep changing the temperature to minimise cooling and heating. It's far simpler to just keep the airflow passive until some heating, cooling or drying is obviously needed.

It objectively uses less energy with my fairly simple method. I understand if most people can't be bothered; but the people claiming that it's somehow better to leave it switched on are wasting energy. I, on the other hand, get a weird sense of fulfillment out of maximising my efficiency, and I am intimately familiar with the various factors which influence it.