Impending court case vs VW dealer

phillydog

Several thousand miles after buying an almost new VW Polo it developed an intermittant fault. During or after rain it had difficulty starting and when it did occasionally stalled at roundabouts and junctions. Took it to the VW dealer who originally sold it, £250 to put right and the problem returned within a fortnight. Took it back to the garage not expecting to pay as the problem wasn't solved; they'd carried out further work and wouldn't release the car until another £200 was paid. Since then the problem has never reoccurred. After exchanges of letters am taking the garage to court - their (detailed) defence is that the 2 faults were separate - my non-expert response is that whatever they did first time didn't resolve the fault otherwise it wouldn't have reoccured within a fortnight. Has anyone had similar experience or can offer advice? Thanks

goldspanners

it is possible for the same fault to be caused by two seperate issues on two seperate occasions.
but surely they would be warranty if it was a nearly new car from a main dealer,what kind of warranty did you have?

anewman

I get the feeling you'll have difficulty with this, but good luck. Would be interesting to hear the outcome, good or bad, so other people know whether it's worth taking garages to court. Good luck and keep us updated if you can please.

iolanthe07

You'll have a job persuading the court that the two faults were not separate against the 'expert' witness the garage will provide, but good luck. Do let us know how you get on - so many of these threads end inconclusively because OP's do not bother with follow-up information.

loofer

As the above posts have said... The first time it went into the garage, it could have needed both 'things' fixing to solve the said problem anyway. These faulty 'parts/things' could be mutually exclusive in the way they work or need both working together to stop fault occuring.

Depending on the details of the work carried out, however, had they fully identified the root cause of the problem first time round, the labour could have been cheaper as they would only need to get the car up on the ramp once, take covers and gain access, refit everything back again etc. Ofcourse this is only if the same access is required to both 'parts'. Labour for this sort of stuff would only be pad once.

Hope that makes sense

deltic_2

This will be very hard to prove in court. It could be a case of mis-diagnosis in the first instance if the symptoms were identical on both occasions and these symptoms were recorded identically on the job-card when you booked the car in for repair on each occasion. If this is the case and the technician's write-up of the repair also does not identify a different set of symptoms on each visit then you may have a case as you could legitimately claim that the first repair did not work. They would then have to prove why it needed 2 separate repairs to fix the same thing which could also be difficult for them to do.

jeannieblue

Curious, you must have the two invoices - which would say what was done and parts used on each occasion.

What did they say? It could help us to give you more support and advice if we knew what exactly had been done or not done.

How old is the vehicle? If under 3 years old - it would be covered under warranty and you shouldn't pay anything.

anewman

jeannieblue wrote: »

How old is the vehicle? If under 3 years old - it would be covered under warranty and you shouldn't pay anything.

But only if MFR's service schedule kept to?

jeannieblue

anewman wrote: »

But only if MFR's service schedule kept to?

Of course, but OP states that it was recentlyish bought from the VW dealer - one can assume (wrongly of course!) that it had been serviced correctly.

cyclonebri1

As several folks have said this should be covered under waranty. Even if the manf service has not been followed they would need substantial reason not to cover it if it was a none serviceable fault. eg repacement electrical component etc.

goldspanners

cyclonebri1 wrote: »

As several folks have said this should be covered under waranty. Even if the manf service has not been followed they would need substantial reason not to cover it if it was a none serviceable fault. eg repacement electrical component etc.

this is correct bri, you dont need to keep to the service schedule if its an electrical item that would not be tested or serviced during a routine service,like a window motor/regulator.