Dealership investigating car problems

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Mon 3 Nov 2003 07:58
Dealership investigating car problems - SprinterJK
Hello
I quite recently got my own car, and as such have little experience of how dealerships and warranties work. The problem is that my car has about 8 months left of the original Nissan warranty, and it's got a few problems that I want sorted out before the warranty expires. Thing is, these problems are fairly intermittent but still quite serious. If I take my car into the Nissan dealership for them to look at and "investigate" the problems, what happens if they do not find anything wrong? Do I get charged for the labour/expenses involved in looking into problems that should be covered by the warranty?

Sorry if this is a spectacularly silly question, but I could do with some advice so I don't end up out of pocket.

Thanks for the help!

Jon
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Mon 3 Nov 2003 08:49
Dealership investigating car problems - Armitage Shanks{P}
One way round the possibility of being charged for unsuccessful work on rectifying faults is to give the garage written instructions say, for instance, "Investigate and remedy rattle in driver's door trim". If they don't cure it they haven't done what you asked and can't charge you for it IMHO. If it is a car with a 3 year warranty and coming up to its first MOT you can have it done up to 30 days early. This has to be done anyway and might throw up some other faults.
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Mon 3 Nov 2003 12:55
Dealership investigating car problems - daryld
Armitage is right: list the items needing fixing in a letter, send the dealer principal or the franchise manager where the work is done.

That way if the work is still not done (or problem comes back soon) when the warranty expires you have some redress. If the work is till not done then write back. Avoid verbal agreements; if the workshop manager says that this cannot be fixed because blah blah then write back confirming what he said.

Sounds painful but I got the front tyres on my car replaced out of warranty this way: they never rectified the cause of the tyre wear when the warranty was active but just kept throwing new tyres at the problem. When the warranty expire they did not want to know. Until I presented them with every letter I sent to the service department: they owned up and I was not charged and this time they changed the track-rod.
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Mon 3 Nov 2003 13:02
Dealership investigating car problems - Phoenicks
Could you get an AA check done to list all the problems, and then take the list to the garage? At least its an independent check so they cant argue the problems dont exsist.
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Mon 3 Nov 2003 14:13
Dealership investigating car problems - Armitage Shanks{P}
AA check is an idea but pretty pricey. In the end if you say there is a fault but it can't be confirmed by the dealer or he doesn't agree, I am not sure that the AA saying there is too is going to help much.
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