My SEAT Leon has a design fault - are SEAT obligated to fix it even though it was serviced elsewhere?

I have a 2013 Seat Leon Estate 1.4 TSI. It has a fault code P334B/013131. This is the later design of actuator, which does not have the vacuum control pipes but is driven by the ECU. It appears that the shaft of the actuator has some lateral movement when hot which may be causing it to stick so various warning lights and problems ensue, to the point of loosing the turbo action. This is a car with less than 23,000 miles and it has been serviced at 8000 by a Seat dealer, at 13,000 by the dealer I bought it from and at 22,000 by my local garage. The thing is, it looks as if the actuator has to be changed with the turbo. The way the system is designed, there is no ability to calibrate the actuator to the turbo as far as we can tell at the moment. Enquiries are being made. This is a ridiculous piece of design and for it to have failed so soon and so expensively should not have happened. Could you advise me if it is possible to take the car back to SEAT to get some goodwill gesture or am I wasting my time? The only response, before they will say anything, so far is to extract £70+VAT from me to even look at it. I have a diagnosis, which was from a tuning firm and a Volkswagen senior technician who happened by at the time. I deliberately avoided the 1.2 TSI as it has had some known problems. But, 11 months on from purchase, I am facing a massive bill. I would be grateful for any advice you can offer.

Asked on 10 January 2018 by Simon Calder-Brown

Answered by Honest John
I've not seen any other reports of this on anything else with the same 1.4 TSI engine yet, even though if they all have the same turbo actuator they all have potentially the same problem. But your problem is the service history of the car that leaves neither the dealer who supplied the car to you, not SEAT under any legal liability, even though this might be a design fault.
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