Hello all

Been a while since I've used CAG but you were very helpful before so I'm hoping for some more help please.

I bought a Vauxhall from new in September 2013.

At that time Vauxhall were still giving lifetime warranties up to 100,000 miles.

Car had to be serviced each year,

have a vehicle check by Vauxhall

and after 3 years be mot'd.

But this all had to be done in a 2 or 3 week window.

Late August,

we had the car serviced and mot'd by the garage we used each year

(which Vauxhall weren't happy about as they wanted us to take the car to them to be serviced and mot'd but we've been using the local garage for years and the customer service at Vauxhall has always been poor).

In early September the car was inspected by Vauxhall and the log book provided to prove we still owned the car and evidence of service and mot.

This was all done within the 2 / 3 week time slot.

Then in November we received a letter from Vauxhall Lifetime Warranty advising that the warranty hadn't been reactivated but if we thought this was incorrect, to get in touch, which we did.

Vauxhall asked for the above documents and obtained a copy of the inspection report from Vauxhall.

I pointed out that Vauxhall had already been provided with the documents

but the lady who dealt with this was off sick

was told it would be quicker if I provided, which I did.

Process was slow,

I gave them 2 weeks to confirm that warranty had been reactivated (5pm on 19 December) otherwise I would sue for the cost of a warranty.

I was then "invited" to have my spark plugs changed and some other work & was given until 22 December to do this to have the warranty reactivated due to the "late reactivation".

None of the work that I was "invited" to do had been requested during the service or vehicle inspection.

I emailed back pointing out that this was not a "late reactivation" but an admin error

& asked for confirmation that the warranty had been reactivated.

I have heard nothing further.

I therefore intend to sue for the cost of a warranty as I believe that Vauxhall have breached the contract by not reactivating the warranty.

I'm happy to hear anyone's thought but wondered who I should sue, Vauxhall Lifetime Warranty or my local Vauxhall garage or jointly?

Vauxhall no longer offer lifetime warranties and I feel that they're just trying to cancel any they can.

Thanks in advance

moved to the correct forum

dx

Hi

Noticed that title of thread has been changed to ".....didnt Service at recommended centre". This is incorrect, it was. Vehicle could be serviced at any reputable and independent garage providing they were VAT registered and used any Vauxhall parts.

Vauxhall weren't happy that we went elsewhere because they wanted the business.

If we had used a garage that we weren't allowed to, the warranty would have cancelled after the first year.

Thanks

Hi

Notice that the title of the thread has been changed. However car could be serviced at an independent garage providing they were VAT registeredand used any Vauxhall parts.

Vauxhall simply unhappy as they wanted the business.

Thanks

seen this quite a few times wonky

yes they def don't like it.

think theres past threads too.

are you happy with the title

just thought it would attract those that know..

Thanks dx

The title is fine, just wanted to clarify that, as far as we're aware, we've done everything we should have.

This is very interesting. I think that you should start off by sending an SAR to Vauxhall or whoever is provides the insurance. There might be some very useful stuff that could be disclosed.

Secondly, I would start looking through the Internet to see if you can find similar situations. If you can then try to make contact with the people who are complaining about it and certainly take screenshots of everything you find. This story smells a bit like a scandal to me.

I get the gist of the story but in terms of your particular case, I don't completely get the train of events.

It would be helpful to me if you could list out chronologically – in a bullet pointed form, and missing out as much of the narrative as you can, exactly what's happened.

Your general question is whether you can sue. The answer is – yes of course you can sue. On the basis of what you say there seems very clearly to be a breach of contract. However the real issue here is what you going to sue for? You have to establish some loss and from my reading of your post so far I don't see that you have yet suffered a loss. In order to sue anybody for anything in the courts, you can't simply sue on a point of principle. You have to show that there is a loss which can be compensated. You could possibly sue for an injunction – in this case called a mandatory injunction – which would order Vauxhall to honour their warranty. However, this would be complicated. It would take it completely out of the small claims track. The courts don't like awarding mandatory injunctions if there is a chance that compensation suffice – and in this case it seems to me that there is a negligible chance of succeeding in getting the order that you need which really is a kind of pre-emptive order. Even if you did start an action on this then there is a chance that because it would come out of the small claims track, the Vauxhall would go to war against you and commit far more money to crushing you than the value of the case. That's what big businesses often do.

In order to sue on this, you would have to do attempt to invoke the warranty and then find that you were obliged to pay for the work somewhere. You would then be able to sue for the recovery of your money. This would produce an actionable set of circumstances because there is a discernible loss.

However, the comments above suggest that this kind of thing has been going on and if that's right and if you can produce evidence of that, then this could be the sort of little scandal that one or two of the Sunday papers might like to get hold of and this would probably produce enough pressure for Vauxhall to start behaving themselves. They might even make a gesture of goodwill.

Send Vauxhall an email from a different account asking if their warranty t&c allow you to service the car at an independent garage using genuine parts and following the recommended schedule.

They'll probably think that you are a potential customer and tell you the truth:

You can have the car serviced from a non Vauxhall garage providing the above.

Then you'll be armed with a very good evidence that they have made a mistake.

With regards to the spark plugs,

check if they are part of the scheduled service for age/mileage of your car.

If they are you need to get them done.

Thanks for the responses.

We are allowed to have the car serviced elsewhere and have had for 3 years without issue.

The issue is "late reactivation" of the warranty.

Car needs to be service & mot'd then have a vehicle inspection at Vauxhall within a specified timescale, which it was.

Local Vauxhall then need to press a button / paperwork to reactivate, which they didn't do.

We were advised warranty not reactivated in November & got in touch to get reactivated as we had done what was needed.

Vauxhall advise that due to "late reactivation" they want us to have work done on the car which wasn't required at the service, not or vehicle inspection.

our view is, it isn't a "late reactivation" its an admin error but Vauxhall seem to want to cancel the warranty as this is something which they no longer offer.

my loss is no warranty, so I want to sue for the price it will cost to buy a warranty independently.

hope this makes sense.

thankd

Thank you.

I'm afraid that your problem is still that you haven't suffered any loss. Of course if you had a breakdown or something which was covered by the warranty then I would advise you to pay for it and then sue Vauxhall for your losses. On the basis of what you say, your chances of success would be better than 95%.

However, you haven't suffered a loss in that there is really no quantifiable figure. I agree completely that you have the loss of the warranty – but you don't really know how much that is worth – until you start having to use it.

You could shop around and find an alternative warranty and then sue on the basis that they have breached the contract so fundamentally that they are brought to an end. However, I don't really find this very satisfactory. You might find that a replacement warranty would only apply to a second-hand car, and that they would consider various things as existing conditions et cetera.

I think that there might be a better and an easier strategy and that would be to needle away at Vauxhall.

I suppose that you have incurred some losses in terms of telephone calls or writing et cetera and trying to get them to activate the warranty correctly. This is probably a very small amount of money – but if you sued for this, it could have the effect of waking Vauxhall up and making them acknowledge the problem.

I suppose if you only sued them for 40 or 50 quid that they would simply pay you to avoid the legal action. However, you wouldn't be obliged to take this money and you could insist on continuing the legal action to obtain a judgement. People don't generally realise that this is permissible – but where it is reasonable to refuse the value of your claim and to continue to seek a judgement, then there is no penalty for doing so. Although you would be suing them for your out-of-pocket expenses incurred so far, I think it would be easy to say to a judge there is a larger issue involved because the warranty still hasn't been activated and you will still continue attempting to get activated and therefore you will still continue to incur similar expenses and this will oblige you to come back to court again and again.

I think at some point Vauxhall would simply put their hands up and activate the warranty.

I don't know if you like this approach but I find it very useful strategy to gnaw away at them in this cheap and risk-free way. Your chances of success would probably be much better than 90%. Chances of them putting their hands up and activating the warranty in order to avoid the hassle would also be better than 90%.

What you need is some evidence that you have attempted to activate the warranty and that they have not done it. Do you have anything?

thre is case law on this,

the Shanklin Pier Co v Detel products ltd.

There is also another county court case that may be persuasive and that is Baker v Shellmex

but although I knew the person I dont have references for it

a boiler co said only their products should be used and when the boiler blew up they claimed that Baker hadnt been using shell fuel oil.

He sued under the implied warranty for the quaity of the fuel using the Detel case as his precedent.

Evening all

Thank you for comments, I really do appreciate and value them all, but.....!

I don't understand why we couldn't sue them for the cost of taking out a warranty with another company.

I understand that we can actually sue them or anyone for anything but have to weigh up what our chances of success would be.

I feel they've breached the contract by not reactivating the warranry when we complied with everything we needed to.

They've requested more than was needed,

3 months after the vehicle was inspected by Vauxhall

(this additional work wasn't requested by Vauxhall when they inspected the car, so why now?)

citing late reactivation when it was simply an admin error, in my opinion.

There's no reason not to reactivate the warranty other than to get another car off their system.

I have spoken to Vauxhall on numerous occasions but have no evidence of this.

But I have also emailed them on numerous occasions requesting the warranty be reactivated and pointing out that this is an admin error.

My last email from 2 weeks ago remains unanswered.

Whilst I like the idea of needling away at them I don't have the time or inclination, I just wanted my warrant reactivating.

Should I call into our local Vauxhall at the weekend and have a final attempt with them? They are aware as my hubby has spoken to them also.

I will have a look at the court cases quoted above - a bit of light bed time reading .

Thanks again