What's NOT Covered by Guarantees ?

Poulgorm

So you buy a new car, say with a 2, 3, 5 year (or whatever) guarantee. What items (that can prove expensive) are not covered?

Clearly, normal wear & tear items (plugs, filters, brake pads etc) are not covered. Nor would you expect them to be.

I understand that the clutch, DPF and turbo are not covered. Is this correct?

Any other costly-to-repair items not covered?

If the timing belt fails before the specified replacement mileage, is it covered (and consequential repairs)?

I am assuming that servicing in accordance with the makers instructions have been carried out by an approved dealer.

Anan1

It varies by warranty, but consumables are generally excluded. Read through the warranty document, don't ever take anyones word for anything.

djimi

If I buy a brand new car then I wouldnt expect things like the clutch and turbo to be excluded from the warranty. Its not like they are offering a 6 month engine and gearbox warranty on a ten year old trade in. Ditto the timing belt; if it goes significantly inside the time required to change it then I would absolutely expect that to be covered.

As Anan said though, it will vary between warranties, so its important to read and understand what is being covered.

ba_barabus

I think clutches are generally only covered up to a limited mileage.

ironclaw

Pessimistic I know, but I've found car warranties to be like travel insurance. Short of actually being killed, travel insurance ain't worth it for the cover you receive for the small, common things that actually happen (i.e. Money theft, lost baggage etc where they give you €150 no matter what the actual value) In the case of a car, you'd almost prefer if consumables will be covered as they'll be your major expense in the life of the car.

Personally I feel warranties are a sales point that are stacked not in your favor unless something major goes wrong very quickly which the dealer is banking on not happening. Which in that case of consumer law will probably be covered anyway (i.e. Less than a few weeks after the sale)

Poulgorm

I know that consumables are not covered - I already pointed that out. Are very expensive items like the clutch (dmf), dpf and turbo classified as consumables ?

The reason I raised this topic is that Kia boast of their 7 year warranty. But I know of one person who had to pay €2,000 to replace a blown turbo in a 3 year old Kia.

Makes you wonder what is covered and what is not. The comparison ironclaw made with travel insurance may not be far off the mark.

Anan1

Poulgorm wrote: »

The reason I raised this topic is that Kia boast of their 7 year warranty. But I know of one person who had to pay €2,000 to replace a blown turbo in a 3 year old Kia.

That sounds very strange. Provided that the car had a documented service history the turbocharger would have been covered under the warranty.

MuppetCheck

A turbo should be covered unless there was some reason they refused the claim.

djimi

Yeah I find that very odd that they wouldnt cover a blown turbo, especially when its not even half way into the warranty period (not that it should matter at what point during the warranty it happens).

Henry Ford III

djimi wrote: »

Yeah I find that very odd that they wouldnt cover a blown turbo, especially when its not even half way into the warranty period (not that it should matter at what point during the warranty it happens).

If the oil hadn't been changed on time/ever they'd have been within their rights to refuse a warranty claim.

djimi

Henry Ford III wrote: »

If the oil hadn't been changed on time/ever they'd have been within their rights to refuse a warranty claim.

It has to be something like that alright. Of if the terms of the warranty specify that services be carried out by a main dealer and this has not been the case.

Poulgorm

They claim that they serviced the car at the specified intervals, but the garage told them that turbos were not covered by the warranty. Strange one, I agree. Unless there was some other issue involved, it would lead one to question the value of Kia's warranty.

I wonder could anyone here from a Kia dealership enlighten us.

Anan1

Poulgorm wrote: »

They claim that they serviced the car at the specified intervals, but the garage told them that turbos were not covered by the warranty. Strange one, I agree. Unless there was some other issue involved, it would lead one to question the value of Kia's warranty.

I wonder could anyone here from a Kia dealership enlighten us.

Their warranty documentation would have clarified that that wasn't the case. TBH, I don't think that they were being quite straight with you.

darragh o meara

Having worked in the trade as a warranty manager, here's a few nuggets if info.

For new cars and this can vary slightly from manufacturer to manufacturer, generally everything is looked at as possible warranty repairs. If a consumable item ie. a clutch, dual mass flywheel goes prematurely or at very low mileage well then a bit of further investigation is warranted and a report as to how the part failed is drawn up. Usually in the likes of clutches they are returned to the manufacturer for inspection who then relays his findings back. However if it look like you spent the last few days doing donuts, burnout etc you can be sure it's not covered and any decent mechanic will spot that a mile away. Warrantable clutch failure usually involves springs or rivets coming off the clutch plate or warping if the plates etc. In most cases the customer will be charged for the work and refunded should it turn out they were not at fault. Warranty for clutch repairs are rare enough though.

Brakes are another area that people like to moan about, the brand I worked for mainly sold automatic cars and as a result the driver is either on the throttle or on the brake and hence brakes wear out faster. If your pad has a flaw or a disc cracks well maybe you have a claim but otherwise it's a consumable and therefore treated as one.

Turbos are mainly covered however there is usually only a handful of reasons why turbos go and the main one is lack of lubrication either by running low on oil or not changing the oil on time and it loosing its lubrication properties, these failures can be spotted easily enough and are not warranty items. Another cause of failure is a foreign object entering the turbo, BMW's come to mind here, again it's an investigation as to what entered and how it did. Premature failure due to other factors usually are covered but most manufacturers will require details of service history to be furnished before a decision is made, a detailed service history helps a lot here and details of oils used and their specs are crucial here as not all oils are equal.... Again a lot of cars nowadays can log oil changes etc in the ecu and some will even know what type oil is used.. But don't worry it's not very common on lower end vehicles.

Other items such as the DPF can be covered too ad I've done a lot of claims for said item. However in a lot of new cars you need to have an additive that gets sprayed into it to help breakdown the gases called Adblue, Eloysys etc. if you've failed to keep this topped up ( and your ecu stores a log of fills, levels and some even the quality of the fluid ) well then your claim can be rejected and you end up with a hefty sized bill. Most we could regenerate in the workshop or out on a drive and sometimes they cleared themselves, others weren't so lucky. A printout in any case accompanies a claim so these details will be clear to see.

Tyres are another bone of contention, manufacturing flaws can appear in tyres as can bad tracking from the manufacturer. It's a grey area because most manufacturers will claim that the tracking was fine leaving the factory and this is usually the case but being strapped to transporters , driven on bad roads can knock it out bad enough to cause problems.

All the other main components are covered.

Now what you must think of is this. A warranty from a manufacturer is a guarantee that parts fitted to a vehicle will not fail due to manufacturing faults, not because it broke when you went at it, or because it broke because it wore out!! I've seen people by new cars and come back near the end of the warranty period with a list of items they broke and expect them to be repaired under warranty, it doesn't always work that way unfortunately. Some taxi drivers are famous for this kinda carry on. If it breaks we will look at it, if it turns out that its a manufacturing defect that caused it to break then we will fix it, if you broke it or it wore out in a normal fashion then you pay.

Another myth is that you have to get your car serviced at a main dealers all the time to get warranty. This condition was got rid if a few years back. Nowadays you an get anyone to service it once they use the correctly specified parts and fluids etc. and of course at the right times again should you need to claim you may be required to prove it had all the right spec stuff fitted and used on the vehicle. Oils are a big one here and I have In the past had to send oils off to be tested to see of the correct spec oils had been used. The real advantage of a full main dealer service history is that you'll be looked at a bit more favourably is you needed some goodwill after your warranty runs out. I've had very few customers get goodwill who didn't have a full main dealer service history.

Kias 7 year warranty I'm not familiar with but id imagine there is some clause in it that says its some different variety of warranty that is not covered if its not serviced by a main dealer.