The Strange Case Of The F-Type Airbag – This Could Affect You!
Wednesday, 24. October 2018
I won’t go into the fine detail but the driver of an F-Type had the under bonnet pedestrian airbag deploy twice without the need to, costing him £4,000 as the dealer and the manufacturer refused to accept that there was a manufacturing or design fault and therefore refused a warranty claim.
What Car got involved but still no joy. In the meantime, fearing that the airbag would deploy again the driver, Aiden Magee, stopped using the car. What Car then recommended that he lodge a complaint with the Motor Ombudsman. After investigating, their adjudicator stated he didn’t think that it was a manufacturing defect as it only affected around 2% of F-Types. WHAT THE F!!!! Are they serious?
OK, so it isn’t a manufacturing defect if only 2% of electric kettles blow up! Or if the brakes only fail on 2% of a particular model of car. What a disgraceful argument. But it gets worse. But before I get to that I should point out that the Motor Ombudsman isn’t like the Financial Ombudsman, financed by the Government they are an independent profit-making body set up to confuse customers.
They are paid for by their member dealers so they can hardly be considered as independent. In fact in some promotional text I managed to see, they explain that being a member of the group and paying fees gives all members great publicity giving the public confidence in using those signed up to the ‘code’. So it’s a marketing con. Here are the reviews on Trustpilot:
https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.themotorombudsman.org
As the car was pre-2016 when Jaguar changed its handbook to say that the pedestrian protection system was active between 12mph and 31mph they felt that as he didn’t know that he had to drive the car at speeds of lower than 12mph when approaching obstacles that Jaguar should pay for the first repair. However, as he had been made aware of the constraints when the first airbag was replaced he was responsible for the second deployment.
None of the above made any sense to me. The ‘Ombudsman’ said that the ‘fault’ only affected 2% of all F-Types so not a manufacturing fault but then referred to the fact that there was no note of the way the pedestrian airbag deployed in the handbook, being the reason why the first replacement should have been made under the warranty but even though no pedestrian was involved in the second deployment the car owner should be responsible.
Not surprising I don’t recommend that you ever use the Motor Ombudsman – what a waste of space. I’m currently attempting to find out if legal expense insurance will cover you for warranty claims. By Graham Hill
