This is my first post so hopefully I have added into the right section

We purchased a brand new car last June with lifetime warranty with Vauxhall. We have had the car for a year and we ran up 40,000 miles in that time but did not get it serviced at 20,000. Red warning light came on and car broke down about hr later.

Been told a water pump leak has caused engine damage and looking at £8,500 repair as engine has been condemned by vauhall.

As we had not serviced it they have refused warranty claim. We put our hands up and acknowledge this should have been done

Question is...do we put this down to a very expensive experience or is there anything we can do?

We have tried Vauxhall direct to see if they would meet some of the costs but they are saying no

Any advice appreciated

This is my first post so hopefully I have added into the right section

 

We purchased a brand new car last June with lifetime warranty with Vauxhall. We have had the car for a year and we ran up 40,000 miles in that time but did not get it serviced at 20,000. Red warning light came on and car broke down about hr later.

 

Been told a water pump leak has caused engine damage and looking at £8,500 repair as engine has been condemned by vauhall.

 

As we had not serviced it they have refused warranty claim. We put our hands up and acknowledge this should have been done

 

Question is...do we put this down to a very expensive experience or is there anything we can do?

 

We have tried Vauxhall direct to see if they would meet some of the costs but they are saying no

 

Any advice appreciated

Failure to get the car serviced as per schedule would be fatal to your warranty.

You would have to show the two aren't related in any way ; that the pump would have failed even if the car had been serviced.

please dont forget your statutory rights under SOGA

and the

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1994/35/crossheading/provisions-relating-to-the-united-kingdom?view=plain

any warranty is in addition to your statutory rights

it does not remove them

the fact that you did not have the car serviced is immaterial, it would not have prevented the failure

prove the WP failed because it was faulty [you'd have to pay to get that done, but that will be refunded upon a successful claim]

If you look in the servicing guide, I bet it doesn't say at that (or any) service, 'check the water pump', so they are using the lack of a service as an excuse to get out of paying for an inherent fault.

There are three ways a water pump can leak,

1. A hole in the pump body
   
2. Water passing the drive shaft
   
3. Water passing between the pump and block ie gasket failure.
   

Unless there are specific service instruction to remove the front cover and examine the cam belt at that service, any leak would not be noticed. (Assuming the waterpump is driven by the cambelt)

Even if there are instructions to remove that cover, the problem might not have appeared until say 30,000 miles so wouldn't have been seen.

You will need the services of a completely independent engineer to look at it and write a report.