warranty issue

garminguy

hi, i have got a major problem with my fiat multipla which is covered by my warranty.
the garage that i bought it from ceased being a fiat dealership within twelve months of my buying the car and refused to honour the fours years and 60,000 km free servicing agreement, so i brought it to my regular garage for all of its services.

have i broken my warranty by not bringing it to another fiat main dealer for its servicing.

Anan1

You should be fine, provided you can prove that the garage serviced it to FIAT specifications using original parts. Was the next FIAT garage so far away that it wasn't worth travelling to in spite of the free servicing & replacement car?

garminguy

the nearest garage after that was 22 miles away

mickdw

You are seriously saying that you wouldnt travel 22 miles for free servicing? As said above, you are allowed to service anywhere you wish however provided parts are suitable, garage is VAT regd & are competent, you can then forget about good will gestures etc that dealer/fiat might usually offer when out of warranty etc.
Sounds kinda like you didnt bother servicing at all or that you did it yourself & now have a warranty issue to get sorted

garminguy

mickdw wrote: »

You are seriously saying that you wouldnt travel 22 miles for free servicing? As said above, you are allowed to service anywhere you wish however provided parts are suitable, garage is VAT regd & are competent, you can then forget about good will gestures etc that dealer/fiat might usually offer when out of warranty etc.
Sounds kinda like you didnt bother servicing at all or that you did it yourself & now have a warranty issue to get sorted

first of all the garage i bought it at were providing the free servicing, not any fiat dealer, i have 3 school runs each day so even if it was free at the nearest fiat garage, its totally impractical,,

my regular guy is legit, uses genuine parts and is vat regd and competent.
no i did not service it myself

so thanks for your helpful advice

Anan1

garminguy wrote: »

first of all the garage i bought it at were providing the free servicing, not any fiat dealer, i have 3 school runs each day so even if it was free at the nearest fiat garage, its totally impractical,,

my regular gay is legit, uses genuine parts and is vat regd and competent.
not i did not service it myself

so thanks for your helpful advice

Providing you have the paperwork to back that up FIAT will have to stand over the warranty. One thing I don't understand though - if the servicing agreement was with that particular garage then how was their loss of franchise grounds for revoking it? Conversely, if it was with FIAT then why wasn't it valid with any other FIAT garage?

garminguy

Anan1 wrote: »

Providing you have the paperwork to back that up FIAT will have to stand over the warranty. One thing I don't understand though - if the servicing agreement was with that particular garage then how was their loss of franchise grounds for revoking it? Conversely, if it was with FIAT then why wasn't it valid with any other FIAT garage?

the only replacements of significance was the timing belt and water pump which was replaced about 9 months ago,

the free servicing for the 60000 km was offered by the garage/dealer himself, probably as an incentive, so when they refused to honour it, {which i still have on the dealers headed paper},
i contacted fiat ireland and they were unaware of any such agreement so i presume it was offered by the garage as an incentive,

unless fiat issue a list of approved replacement parts at point of purchase, i fail to see if you can meet their requirements when using a non fiat garage for service and maintainence

Anan1

garminguy wrote: »

the only replacements of significance was the timing belt and water pump which was replaced about 9 months ago,

the free servicing for the 60000 km was offered by the garage/dealer himself, probably as an incentive, so when they refused to honour it, {which i still have on the dealers headed paper},
i contacted fiat ireland and they were unaware of any such agreement so i presume it was offered by the garage as an incentive,

I'd have thought that would be one for the Small Claims Court.

garminguy wrote: »

unless fiat issue a list of approved replacement parts at point of purchase, i fail to see if you can meet their requirements when using a non fiat garage for service and maintainence

If the garage who serviced the car got the parts from a FIAT dealer it'll be fine as the car will have been serviced with FIAT approved parts - if they got them from a local motor factor it won't.

mickdw

Wasnt trying to be unhelpful. It seems it was just an odd situation that the dealer would offer this free servicing & then refuse to cover it.

robtri

no offence but i would be claiming the cost of servicing

would let the fecker away with that one....

garminguy

mickdw wrote: »

Wasnt trying to be unhelpful. It seems it was just an odd situation that the dealer would offer this free servicing & then refuse to cover it.

it is odd and he never returned any phonecalls inquiring why he was not honouring this agreement,
since we could not force him to service our car, we had no choice but to bring it to another garage
we felt a bit cheated to be honest but this was back in 2007 in the middle of greedy ireland and could not be arsed to drag it through the small claims court, but might consider it now just out of principle.

djimi

I would certainly persue it. If you have it written on an official document from the garage that you would get a free service after so many miles and they are refusing to honor it then they are refusing to honor one of the terms of the sale and you would be very right to persue it.

Cheeky feckers; how exactly do they think they would get away with it if they had given you something in writing? The mind boggles...

garminguy

just checked the mileage on my fiat and its 104,000, so the warranty will not cover me.
anybody know a ball park figure for head gasket replacement?

kildare.17hmr

garminguy wrote: »

just checked the mileage on my fiat and its 104,000, so the warranty will not cover me.
anybody know a ball park figure for head gasket replacement?

chi ching!(thats your mechanics ears ringing:D) good oul fiats and there head gaskets!! some things never change!

Dont mean to rub salt into the wound i just hate fiats and hate hearing about people getting stung like you just did

si_guru

garminguy wrote: »

..
since we could not force him to service our car, we had no choice but to bring it to another garage..

You had a contract with him. You could force him.

kildare.17hmr

Just wanna make sure i got this right.

He sold you the car with this agreement when he was selling fiats but lost the fiat franchise in the mean time but is still trading? if so is it under the same company name? same staff ect??