New car key fob not working properly.

Okell

mrcactus said:

... Had a call at 5pm this evening to ask if I had another key so they could further investigate why the new key they gave me and re-programmed to the car isn't working. The wooman I spoke to said if they can't find out what's wrong with the key THEY provided and programmed to the car, then I would need to pay for another one.

I explained to her the guy I spoke to said the key will be under a warranty and as long as I haven't caused any sort of damage to the car then there will be no charge to me as it is Renault's responsibility. She said she had no record of that phone call and the only warranty would be with the car and the key would be covered under that warranty, there is no seperate warranty with the key itself....

Just re-reading this, is it possible that you were talking at cross-purposes?

Was the woman you were speaking to aware that you had already paid £300 for this key that doesn't work?  Surely it must have been obvious to her that if you'd paid £300 for it and it didn't work then it would be wholly unreasonable for them to expect you to pay another £300 for another key - that also might not work!  What she's telling you makes no sense...

Also I thought you said on the previous thread that the invoice for the key showed that it was under a separate warranty from the original car?  (Although as everybody has said, this should be a straightforward consumer rights issue and not a warranty issue)

I'm just thinking that the woman you spoke to either doesn't seem to fully understand your situation or she doesn't know anything.  Or perhaps she knows something you haven't explained to us...

Do you not know who you originally spoke to?  Don't you have a record of the call?  (This is why this needs to be by email or other form of writing).

I'd get back to the garage/dealership and either speak to this woman again or ask to speak to a manager.

You could always negotiate a partial refund with them to reflect the fact the key doesn't work properly.  But why can't they provide a key that does work properly?

Why did you have to pay for the key in the first place?  Had you lost or damaged the original(s)?

BTW  -  Trading Standards won't help you but you could try Citizens's Advice

mrcactus

I had the key ordered by Renault in April. It came from france so took a week or two. I was then booked in for the key to be programmed to the car on 02/05/2023. 

When I first had issues with this, I called Renault delaer local to me who said I would have to buy a new key and pay to have re coded to the car. I submitted a query form online to Renault saying that it should be under warranty and quoted the sale of goods act or what ever it was....the next day is when this guy called me and said yes, it is under warranty and as long as we can see you haven't damaged the key, all will be re-done for free.

mrcactus

Okell said:

mrcactus said:

... Had a call at 5pm this evening to ask if I had another key so they could further investigate why the new key they gave me and re-programmed to the car isn't working. The wooman I spoke to said if they can't find out what's wrong with the key THEY provided and programmed to the car, then I would need to pay for another one.

I explained to her the guy I spoke to said the key will be under a warranty and as long as I haven't caused any sort of damage to the car then there will be no charge to me as it is Renault's responsibility. She said she had no record of that phone call and the only warranty would be with the car and the key would be covered under that warranty, there is no seperate warranty with the key itself....

Just re-reading this, is it possible that you were talking at cross-purposes?

Was the woman you were speaking to aware that you had already paid £300 for this key that doesn't work?  Surely it must have been obvious to her that if you'd paid £300 for it and it didn't work then it would be wholly unreasonable for them to expect you to pay another £300 for another key - that also might not work!  What she's telling you makes no sense...

Also I thought you said on the previous thread that the invoice for the key showed that it was under a separate warranty from the original car?  (Although as everybody has said, this should be a straightforward consumer rights issue and not a warranty issue)

I'm just thinking that the woman you spoke to either doesn't seem to fully understand your situation or she doesn't know anything.  Or perhaps she knows something you haven't explained to us...

Do you not know who you originally spoke to?  Don't you have a record of the call?  (This is why this needs to be by email or other form of writing).

I'd get back to the garage/dealership and either speak to this woman again or ask to speak to a manager.

You could always negotiate a partial refund with them to reflect the fact the key doesn't work properly.  But why can't they provide a key that does work properly?

Why did you have to pay for the key in the first place?  Had you lost or damaged the original(s)?

BTW  -  Trading Standards won't help you but you could try Citizens's Advice

I paid for a new key as the original one stopped working with the contactless entry, which was fine as it was the original from 2009 when the car was bought. 

I don't know who I spoke to, I do prefer emails but Renault are just a nightmare to get hold of sometimes

Okell

mrcactus said:

I had the key ordered by Renault in April. It came from france so took a week or two. I was then booked in for the key to be programmed to the car on 02/05/2023. 

When I first had issues with this, I called Renault delaer local to me who said I would have to buy a new key and pay to have re coded to the car. I submitted a query form online to Renault saying that it should be under warranty and quoted the sale of goods act or what ever it was....the next day is when this guy called me and said yes, it is under warranty and as long as we can see you haven't damaged the key, all will be re-done for free.

OK - so the original key stopped working after 14 years.  I suppose it seems reasonable that you had to pay for a new one then.   

But having paid for a new one I think (and the law also thinks) that you're entitled to have one that is fully functional - ie keyless entry works and the remote locking/unlocking buttons also work.

Presumably your local Renault dealer is the one you originally spoke to, the one who ordered the key from Renault for you, the one who was meant to do the programming, and also the one who told you it would be re-programmed for free if they could see that you hadn't damaged it?

This isn't criticism of you but I can't help thinking that you and the woman from the dealer must have been talking at cross-purposes or that you failed to get across to her what has happened.  If you and she are both agreed that the key you paid £300 for isn't working properly, I can't for the life of me see why she thinks it's your problem if they can't get it to work properly and that you should pay another £300 for another key(!).

Get back on the 'phone to them tomorrow.  If she won't listen to you ask to speak to a manager.  If you get their agreement to re-programme it for free, send them an email straight afterwards confirming what was said and ask them for their confirmation by reply.  Remember, this isn't about whether the key is under warranty or not - although it might help.  This is about the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (legislation.gov.uk) which says that goods must be of satisfactory quality, must be fit for a particular pupose (in your case remote locking and unlocking your car), and must be as described.

If you can't get them to agree tomorrow to fix it for free, come back to this thread tomorrow for further ideas.

As the car is 14 years old, would you be happy to accept that the remote buttons wouldn't work in return for a partial refund?  Say between 50% and 75%.  You might want to think that over... or you might not...  Just a thought.

Regarding the 6 months thing.  When did you take actually take delivery of what was meant to be a fully functioning key?  Presumably after 2nd May, so it may or may not have been more than 6 months ago?

ArbitraryRandom

Okell said:

Regarding the 6 months thing.  When did you take actually take delivery of what was meant to be a fully functioning key?  Presumably after 2nd May, so it may or may not have been more than 6 months ago?

It also matters when you first reported the fault to them - as the waiting period for the trader to diagnose the fault and offer/action a remedy pause the clock in terms of 'usage'. 

Okell

ArbitraryRandom said:

Okell said:

Regarding the 6 months thing.  When did you take actually take delivery of what was meant to be a fully functioning key?  Presumably after 2nd May, so it may or may not have been more than 6 months ago?

It also matters when you first reported the fault to them - as the waiting period for the trader to diagnose the fault and offer/action a remedy pause the clock in terms of 'usage'. 

I'm hoping the whole 6 months thing is irrelevant in this situation.

First, I can't see the dealer realistically being able to dispute that the key was not faulty from the outset, plus the OP said in his first thread that he informed the dealer of the issue on 29 September - within 6 months.

Second, even if the OP was outside 6 months it would be only by a week or a few weeks at the most.  I would hope that any deduction by the dealer for usage would only be nominal.  In my view they'd have to be exceptionally miserly and mean-minded to make any deduction at all in the circumstances.  But they are car dealers so I suppose they're capable of anything.

It would still be nice to know when the OP got the supposedly programmed key though.

MSE_ForumTeam5

We've merged the two threads

born_again

mrcactus said:

I had the key ordered by Renault in April. It came from france so took a week or two. I was then booked in for the key to be programmed to the car on 02/05/2023. 

When I first had issues with this, I called Renault delaer local to me who said I would have to buy a new key and pay to have re coded to the car. I submitted a query form online to Renault saying that it should be under warranty and quoted the sale of goods act or what ever it was....the next day is when this guy called me and said yes, it is under warranty and as long as we can see you haven't damaged the key, all will be re-done for free.

So can we back track a bit.

Where did you buy this key from?
Which dealer programmed the key?

As it does not sound like the local dealer you spoke to, to me.

Okell

born_again said:

mrcactus said:

I had the key ordered by Renault in April. It came from france so took a week or two. I was then booked in for the key to be programmed to the car on 02/05/2023. 

When I first had issues with this, I called Renault delaer local to me who said I would have to buy a new key and pay to have re coded to the car. I submitted a query form online to Renault saying that it should be under warranty and quoted the sale of goods act or what ever it was....the next day is when this guy called me and said yes, it is under warranty and as long as we can see you haven't damaged the key, all will be re-done for free.

So can we back track a bit.

Where did you buy this key from?
Which dealer programmed the key?

As it does not sound like the local dealer you spoke to, to me.

I wondered about that which is why I asked if they were dealing with the same entity throughout.  I presumed they had been but the OP hadn't been very clear about who did what...

Okell said:

mrcactus said:

I had the key ordered by Renault in April. It came from france so took a week or two. I was then booked in for the key to be programmed to the car on 02/05/2023. 

When I first had issues with this, I called Renault delaer local to me who said I would have to buy a new key and pay to have re coded to the car. I submitted a query form online to Renault saying that it should be under warranty and quoted the sale of goods act or what ever it was....the next day is when this guy called me and said yes, it is under warranty and as long as we can see you haven't damaged the key, all will be re-done for free.

... Presumably your local Renault dealer is the one you originally spoke to, the one who ordered the key from Renault for you, the one who was meant to do the programming, and also the one who told you it would be re-programmed for free if they could see that you hadn't damaged it?...

Although if they had been different I'd have expected the OP to have made that clear orignally.  Surely he would have thought to mention that?

I also wondered if the OP had ordered the key form Renault himself and paid for it, and whether the programming was a sepaarte transaction with the local dealer.  but surely he'd have said so...

mrcactus

Right, so I bought the key through my local Renault dealer, which they ordered from France (presumably Renault as it has the embedded renault logo on the key itself)

When the Key arrived at the dealership, I booked my car in with the dealer to have that key programmed to the car. It was their in-house tech team/garage people who did the programming.

I have a receipt for the key purchase and a receipt for the programming. The reciept for the programming has a warranty number on it and the date on the reciept is 02/05/2023.

The guy who called me back after submitting the online query form was from my Renault dealer and all other persons I've spoke to were from the local dealer.

Sorry if my posts have made no sense, I'm not very good at explaining things very well (as you can probably tell)