Battery warranties

Andyxyz

I would welcome people’s thoughts on this.

When our son finished Uni, we bought him an old VW Polo (05 plate), did some basic maintenance on it and it has been well maintained ever since. A couple of years ago, the existing battery died of old age and, as the car is one of the vehicles covered by my RAC membership, we bought a brand new RAC battery with a 5-year warranty, which has worked perfectly ever since.

However, my son went on a 10-day skiing holiday last month and, when he got back, the battery was flat. None of his friends have a car and hence couldn’t give him a jump, so I told him to call the RAC, and gave him my expectation that they would come out, give the battery a quick charge and tell him to drive around for a half-hour to get the battery back up to full charge.

When the RAC patrol came out, none of that happened. Their quick diagnosis said it was a faulty battery and would have to be replaced. There was no attempt to charge the battery. Our RAC account showed the warranty on the battery, but the patrolman suggested that leaving the car unused for 10 days constituted “improper use” and that the warranty was invalidated, so he would have to put in a new battery for £120. My son reluctantly agreed. The new battery was installed and my son paid up.

When he told me what had happened, I told him to bring the old battery home and I would see if I could charge it up and check whether it was truly faulty – if not faulty, it would act as a useful spare. But he told me that the RAC patrolman had taken the old battery away.

My son is inexperienced with cars and a little unworldly, so he didn’t challenge anything he was told by the RAC patrolman. This whole episode seems a little strange to me – is this how battery failure is normally treated these days?

EssexExile

It's makes you wonder if the RAC people get a commission on battery sales!

ilikewatch2

Sounds like not a great deal has changed since Watchdog investigated mis-selling of batteries by RAC patrols back in 2016.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/517yjLSb1kShHrr7pV2f8mr/rac

greyteam1959

EssexExile said:

It's makes you wonder if the RAC people get a commission on battery sales!

I believe they  ( and other motoring breakdown organisations ) do.
And they will probably cash the old batteries in at around £5- 6 each.

SiliconChip

Your son should make a complaint to RAC, there's no way that not using a car for 10 days could be considered "improper use".

CliveOfIndia

Sadly this type of story is all-to-common.  For all their flashy advertising, I do often wonder about the morals of the AA and RAC.

Andyxyz said:

None of his friends have a car and hence couldn’t give him a jump

For future reference, assuming the car is a standard manual transmission model, it's worth learning how to bump-start a car.  It's not difficult, and may just get you out of a pickle if a similar situation should arise in the future.

Ganga

CliveOfIndia said:

Sadly this type of story is all-to-common.  For all their flashy advertising, I do often wonder about the morals of the AA and RAC.

Andyxyz said:

None of his friends have a car and hence couldn’t give him a jump

For future reference, assuming the car is a standard manual transmission model, it's worth learning how to bump-start a car.  It's not difficult, and may just get you out of a pickle if a similar situation should arise in the future.

A car with a completely flat battery would probably not bump start as there would be no electricity to give a spark ,if the vehicle had a dynamo rather than an alternator yes you can bump start.

facade

It is likely he left something switched on, and after 10 days the battery had been run flat, and kept flat, which kills a battery, so it likely needed a new battery anyway.

There are far cheaper places than the AA, but remember, they came out to his car with it and fitted it.

You don't really want the old one, they are never any good when you store them, chances are you won't be weighing it in for scrap, and will end up taking it for disposal yourself.

An expensive lesson, but move on, there isn't anything you can do about it now.

SiliconChip

facade said:

There are far cheaper places than the AA, but remember, they came out to his car with it and fitted it.

I think you mean RAC (although I expect the same warning applies to the AA).

Ibrahim5

It's very important to me that things 'just work". If there was a question mark about my battery I would use my  charger to buy time whilst I source a highest quality new battery and fit it. End of problem for a few years. Never dream of using breakdown organisation unless stuck somewhere. Other people argue that they pay for home start. So a van appears and a man starts their car. The next week the same thing happens. They will call the AA or RAC multiple times. Anything but buy a new battery. I am sure that's part of the reason that the breakdown companies sell batteries.

Bigwheels1111

Wow, I love the comments on here.
All missing the one basic fact, why on Earth would you tell the RAC representative that the car had been left for 10 days.

My call would go like this, hello my car won’t start, yes it was fine yesterday and now will not start the battery is dead.
Had you left the lights on, No.
Job done new battery fitted under warranty.
Honesty is a wonderful thing until it kicks you in the teeth.