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I read loads of motor magazines and just about every week, in at least one, I read complaints from drivers who have had a warranty claim turned down. The motor magazines try to help out, usually by contacting the dealer, manufacturer or warranty provider. Some warranty providers, realising that they are acting illegally, offer to settle the claim ‘as a gesture of goodwill’, which normally infuriates me because it isn’t a gesture of goodwill it’s a legal obligation.

That aside the advice from the dealer goes nowhere near far enough. Once they have challenged the warranty provider, and in the latest case I’ve seen, that is the RAC, and they refuse to settle the claim it seems to be game over. In the latest story, the buyer of a Mini took out a warranty on his 2010 Cooper D bought from an RAC approved dealer. 10 months later the timing chain snapped and caused serious damage to the engine.

The cost of a replacement engine varied between £4,000 and £7,000 which the driver assumed would be covered by his RAC Platinum Warranty but they rejected the claim arguing that the timing chain had reached the end of its ‘normal working life’. As a result of Auto Express’s intervention RAC warranties sent out an RAC engineer to inspect the car.

Unsurprisingly the engineer claimed that the driver should have noticed the problems with the chain prior to it snapping due to a ‘rattling type noise from the timing chain area of the engine’. The report also argued that ‘reasonable steps have not been taken to mitigate the loss’. The driver argued that he hadn’t heard any rattle or noise from the engine prior to the chain failure. The driver also explained that the car had been serviced twice since he bought the car so it had been properly maintained.

Despite the intervention of Auto Express the claim was still thrown out causing me to get very angry! First of all one has to ask if RAC warranties are worth having in the first place? Secondly, why did they not pursue a claim through the Financial Ombudsman Service as the warranty claim was not fit for purpose and the report, that should really have been independent, confused the issue.

The RAC refused the claim because the timing chain had ‘reached the end of its working life’. So why report that the driver should have heard the noise from the timing area of the engine, are they now saying that had he heard it and made a claim he would have been successful?

Then to confuse matters further they say that ‘reasonable steps have not been taken to mitigate the loss’. So are they saying that they would have paid out for a new timing chain but would not pay out for the engine because the driver should have stopped the car as soon as he was aware of a problem as a result of the noisy engine?

There was a very strong case to take to the Financial Ombudsman as well as a complaint to Trading Standards for breach of the Consumer Rights Act 2015. As the car had been recently serviced the engineer would have been the one to identify the noise from the engine, not the driver sitting in the soundproofed cabin.

To be honest I would also have made a claim to the EU Consumer Centre under the EU 2 year guarantee scheme. That normally sends anyone against whom the claim is made into a tailspin!

I applaud the efforts made by all the motor magazines but they really ought to be more aware of the remedies available. By Graham Hill