Warranty

[Nick weeden]

Owing to the fact I'm slightly nervous about my gearbox I made enquiries about warranties and found one that covers engine, gearbox and transmission for £460 a year. So anyone out there with a similar predicament I recon it's a good investment

[Shoppinit]

Until you need to claim...

We should make bam's claim story a sticky.

[Shoppinit]

This is why I don't bother with warranties:

I had the same conversation with W D after I had gone online to check out the costs. I was offered the same as you with Main Dealer rates which I thought was a good deal. Their Engineer duly came out and checked the car over. About six weeks later my gearbox went bang. After a lot of time and telephone calls I finally got W D to send an Engineer out to look at the stripped gearbox after they initially refused to pay out. This all started in February. Grizz sorted out the car and I had back about three weeks ago. Today I received a cheque from WD for 16.9 hours labour and the cost of replacing the damaged component

I had similar. It took 9 weeks of incessant correspondence on my behalf. The 'box was sat stripped down and in that period the engineers showed up no less than three times to peer into it.
- The first time (after ludicrous amounts of emails and phone calls), I was told the 'box had failed, ATF return pipe cracked and burnt slipper clutch but I had to await engineer report before sign off.
-Still no sign off after 3 weeks, I get very very shitty and after demanding an answer, I'm finally told the photos that their outsourced warranty engineer took were corrupt, they asked if they could reschedule another inspection, I said yes. I called the gearbox Shop apologetic about this and tell them the story and the gov says "mate, that engineer didn't even have a camera! He poked his head in, I pointed out what was wrong and then I went to look him in the eye to chat about the slipper clutch and he was walking out, rude <beep>. Said he'd get it signed off".
- Second engineer visit and I'm left waiting and told the report and photos are taking a long time but it'll be signed off any day, I call or email everyday for 3 weeks. I'm told "tomorrow", pretty much everyday. Finally I'm told it'll be signed off for sure the next day. I leave it 3 days, no call, so I call them and I'm told the photos were too blurry. I lose my sh!t and tell them that's not my problem and I want it signed off immediately.
- A third visit photo shoot of my gearbox is arranged at week 6. This time the photos are confirmed good but then I'm told as it's a pay out over a certain amount, it needs to be approved by the MD and he's sick. I called everyday for a week, sold the same story. Then I'm told it's on his list of things to do! I lose my sh!t again and take legal advice and I start formal requests for all information held about this claim and my person. I'm called and told the MD is on holidays for 2 weeks, I say I don't care and I want my claim expedited, it comes to a head at week 8 when I don't stop calling, I start on a Thursday morning and I sit in the WD phone queues all day. I get bounced everywhere but I repeatedly ask where my claim sign off is and I dismantle every argument they throw at me. Rinse. Repeat. All day. My whole office were in tears of laughter, my direct questioning and level of commitment made me an absolute fucken nightmare to deal with, I would get anyone I spoke to all twisted up on their stories. The more they squirmed the more tenacious I became. The next day I commenced another all-out assault and mysteriously the MD came back from the dead and signed it off by 11am. I got a call from the gearbox rebuilder saying they'd received go ahead paperwork. It was rebuilt in two days and shipped to MRC.
- Another battle to extract the claim cheque 3 months later and I got £3600 for 16hrs labour and some gearbox parts. I'll tell you right now, it wasn't worth it. My time and about £1,400 in car hire, plus lost road tax, insurance and parking permit. It was a false economy.

Why did they stall? Because they wanted me to think it was a dead cert and then go ahead with the rebuild, then they'd say "pictures are corrupt/lost/eaten by a dog and there's no proof, can we look at it again?", "well no, I've already had it rebuilt", "sorry, rule 1, no pictures, no proof, no proof, no claim".
Have fun with WD, personally, I hope they all get misdiagnosed with cancer and are forced to have chemotherapy. Front bottoms.

[Shoppinit]

And...

Do this.

Making a friend or enemy (frienemy) at the warranty co is a good start. The warranty co soon found out that I was a nightmare and deferred all correspondence to a particular 'engineer'. He sounded 12yrs old on the phone, but admittedly, he held the company line better than anyone I'd dealt with, the rest were just journeymen. Once it was clear that I'd been assigned this particular hardass 'engineer', I set about hounding him via phone, constantly, sometimes at 10min intervals and it was particularly painful due to the front-loaded account security every time I called. He could hear my voice, he knew it me< I knew it was him, but, we'd still dance the dance, with me being crushingly efficient at rattling off every detail required in a single breath and him slightly mixing it up every other call. I was the Pepé Le Pew of phone rapists.

My objective? To get his email address, of course! Like any good stalker/rapist... apparently it was company policy to not send/receive emails to/from clients. I'll admit, he was good at deflection and obfuscation, he'd always use the double-blind warranty co email system (I bet it was a biatch to use, too) but I caught him off-guard one day and I think it was late, close to home time, I said "yes, I have that invoice scanned, give me your email and I'll send it immediately, then I'll be out of your hair for the day". He gave it up like a true a beta, the only alpha trait he had left was now about to be torn asunder.

Before and after every phone call, I'd email him. I'd email him an up-to-date "state-of-play" timeline pre-phone call, then I'd call and he'd always deny receiving said email but I'd recite the sending time and email address, verbatim, as phone calls are recorded for blablabla purposes. Then, I'd recite the whole email (state-play emails are repetitive and time-consuming), then, after I'd hung up, I'd forward him the post-phone call email with a blow-by-blow of what was just discussed on the phone. Let's just say, his phone persona was of a broken man after I acquired his email address and his little trick of saying he'd not received any of my emails was soon abandoned when he had to endure a complete recital of all emails I'd sent.

However, the warranty co fought to the very end with some very iffy tactics along the way, you need to be patient and considered.

bam_bam's loosely compiled process when dealing with a big-ticket gearbox warrant claim:

• 0.9a. Ensure the ATF fluid level is spot on.
  
  0.9b. Be very sure you've got a failure that is within the warranty co's agreed policy.
  
  0.9c. Make sure you have the funds to cover all the work that's about to happen, the warranty co won't reimburse you until payment confirmation from your garage. It's a money laundering front but it makes sense, kinda. Also, be prepared to allow plenty of time to be without that money, the warranty cos are hardly quick with reimbursement, c-unts.
  
  1. Tell the Warranty co you want to have it stripped down to investigate/define the fault (there is a fault, it doesn't work as it should).
  
  2. Warranty co will (try to) scare you by saying "if there's no fault, you pay".
  
  3. Agree and get them to confirm that a strip down to investigate the fault is the next step. Get this approval in writing and have them send this approval to the repairing garage. Issue the garage with strict instruction to not perform any works unless written approval is issued by the warranty co.
  
  4. The warranty co will want a particular vendor perform this task, depending on your policy THIS IS NOT ENFORCEABLE. If your policy states that you can use any garage as long as the labour rate is within their agreed bracket, then choose whomever you want. You could chose a garage with a higher reputation and labour rates but that's your prerogative and you'll have to pay the difference (this is not to be confused with betterment).
  
  5. Get the 'box ripped out and stripped down, then have the sprippee tell you what's wrong with it, then have the warranty co 'engineer' go and inspect the inside-out 'box.
  
  6. Now wait. Do not lose patience. Be methodical. Call the warranty co everyday and get them to commit to a timeline and then get angry when they do not adhere to that timeline, after you rage out, get them to commit to a new timeline, then if they break that timeline, rage on again my brother, because this time you're going to preface a new timeline with an ultimatum. That ultimatum is to escalation the issue to the regulator.
  
  7. Harass them and keep them honest on exactly what they said was to happen next and take loads of notes, including; times/dates/names/ref numbers. I guarantee they'll never call you, it'll be you doing the calling but that doesn't make you a beta dog, turn it around, you be the Pepé Le Pew, you be the rapist, make them the rapee. It'll keep you sane... or insane, if that's the way you work.
  
  8. Unless you've got it very very wrong, the 'box will be confirmed broken but await written confirmation for proceeding works. Now, the warranty co I used outsourced the assessments, as a part of their process, the contractors are meant to issue photographic proof to the warranty co. On three (3) occasions I was told that the engineer had confirmed the 'box had failed (good news) but written confirmation for works to proceed did not materialise at my chosen garage, [IMPORTANT] if I'd taken their word and told the garage to commence work, I would've been left holding the bill. When chasing the warranty co, I'd eventually be told the photos were too (1)blurred/(2)corrupted/(3)blurred (in that order). Even though, I knew for a fact, the initial contracted engineer arrived on-site without a camera and at no time during the 'assessment' did he take a photo. It was the 3rd time that I was told the photos were blurred that I threatened action on my ultimatum. Hours later, approval was sent to the garage, seemingly, without valid photographic proof, meaning the warranty co either broke protocol or... you take a guess.
  
  9. You now need to chase the warranty co for your reimbursement, even this task was difficult but I employed the above strategy and the final ultimatum was again threatened, after I was told that "I can't help you, the only person that can sign off a cheque that large is the CEO and he's on holidays", my answer "Firstly, you said the cheque had been cut and was in the mail at x:xxpm xxth Oct 20xx. Secondly, how is the CEO being on holiday my problem? Call him right now and get this approved or I WILL call you EVERY 10mins and ask you where my cheque is, OK?, "Yes sir". After the 9th call, I was told the CFO was able to sign a cheque and it was sent 1st class, I should receive it tomorrow. It arrived the next day, as promised and it was only 6 weeks late.
  
  10. It's worth noting that you're within your legal right (depending on your policy) to better your position. In this case, I asked for my engine to be stage 3'd and an A.C.E TC built while the car was apart. Obviously I had to pay for the stage three'ing bit but I only had to make up the difference for the A.C.E TC over the regular item. I did this by first getting a written SOW cost breakdown, so I could see how much they allocated to the TC rebuild and instructed the garage to not perform that task, then I informed the warranty co of my intention for betterment.
  
  11. ?????
  
  12. Profit.

It'll be painful, it'll probably take a long while and you will either have to compromise OR call the warranty co's bluff. The warranty policy and the engineer's/gearbox specialist's assessment is your friend, the warranty co is bound by that but they will try everything to scare you, stall or appear approving so you make a decision without approval. they'll wait for you to make a mistake based on you getting sick of waiting so long without a car etc.
For the record, according to my notes, I made 165 phone calls to get this sorted with the warranty co and the gearbox outfit, that doesn't include calls to MRC or Andre at A.C.E TC.

[james85]

Id just spend the money on getting the gearbox serviced, get some new oil in there, see what the state of the stuff that comes out is like and keep your fingers crossed lol

[Mɐʇʇ]

Bam's experience sounds more like a horror story.

[Nick weeden]

Drove her a fair few miles Saturday and She performed faultlessly.

[Capt Ric]

Had a policy with Warranty Direct for past 4 years, and can honestly say it did what is says on the tin.
Bought it mainly in case of gearbox failure. Box has been fine, regularly serviced by unit 20 but several more minor claims always settled without fuss.
Total premiums slightly exeeded the claims, so I guess everyone's a winner.
However now its too old to get full cover I'll be keeping my fingers crossed and driving sympathetically.