Beware Of Inspection Charges When Making An Insurance Claim

Friday, 19. February 2010

My Mercedes is being a bit of a pain. Since I got it a year ago the dealer has had two tries at sorting out two warning lights that came on unexpectedly, one related to the tyre pressures and the other the ESP system. I asked if I could drive the car safely and they pointed out that as the warning lights were orange and not red, as long as I checked my tyre pressures all should be ok till I could get the car in for repair a couple of days later. A fault was found in the wiring and it was corrected under the warranty. The car has since developed another fault, the speedo pointer should be lit up but that is now dark as a result, I would assume, of a blown bulb. I thought these incidents were pretty isolated and new cars were generally faultless, except of course for the odd brake recall, but my assumption was apparently wrong if you read some of the complaints pages in the motoring magazines. One could argue that the problems are simply an irritation but I feel you should be warned that if a problem can be identified as fair wear and tear or accidental damage the warranty won’t cover you and even worse you could be out of pocket by several hundred pounds for finding the fault. In one case a gentleman took his car to a main dealer with a glowing engine warning light. They inspected the problem and sent their results to the manufacturer. The light had been on for about 3 months following some exceptionally wet weather. There was no identifiable fault, it would seem that the wet weather was responsible and the light was re-set but as there was no warranty claim the driver received a bill for £300 for the inspection to be carried out, which would have been picked up by the manufacturer if the warranty claim had been honoured. The driver could do nothing about this and was stuck with the bill so the lesson is maybe to check the cost of the inspection before you have it done and be prepared for a bill if the warranty claim is rejected. But having said that I will be sending out a case history in the next few days where it shows that you should never accept what the manufacturer says as final when he rejects a warranty claim, treat it as you would the offer of an insurance payout – it’s just their opening offer to try to keep the payout to a minimum. By Graham Hill