Warranty - do I pay dealer to diagnose a fault?

Juran

My Citroen is only a year old - still in warranty, electric motor on mirrors not working, I called my local citroen dealer who tells me it will be €85 to diagnose the issue. Once they confirm the fault and fix/replace the part, do I still have to pay the €85 diagnostic fee? I asked the guy on the phone this question and he won't give me a straight answer ...usual answer "you'll have to bring it in", "we'll have to see first" ..etc..
Thanks.

Atlantic Dawn

I would say not, the car if bought new has at least a 2 year warranty, how they diagnose the problem should be done at their expense. Perhaps call where you bought it and have them have a word with your local dealer or else call Citroen Ireland.

biko

Imo, they can only charge you if the fault is not within warranty.
Then the question is "mirror electrics, are they a warranty item?"

Brand new Cit warranty is usually 3 years or 100,000kms.
See owners’ handbook for warranty terms and conditions.

Damien360

You are not limited to the dealer where you bought the car for any warranty claims.

I had a warranty claim on an insignia and went to another Opel dealer who was more than happy to take the work and claim back warranty from their network.

Ring another dealer and see if they would charge, bet they won't. Then ring back first guy and shame them into doing the work for free as it should be. Failing that go somewhere else.

Voodoomelon

That's mental, how could they possibly think they can get away with charging you, did you buy the car new yourself? You shouldn't have to pay for a thing under warranty.

bucketybuck

Juran wrote: »

My Citroen is only a year old - still in warranty, electric motor on mirrors not working, I called my local citroen dealer who tells me it will be €85 to diagnose the issue. Once they confirm the fault and fix/replace the part, do I still have to pay the €85 diagnostic fee? I asked the guy on the phone this question and he won't give me a straight answer ...usual answer "you'll have to bring it in", "we'll have to see first" ..etc..
Thanks.

If the fault is a warrantable item then you should not receive any bill, in fact for many manufacturers the dealer will fail a warranty audit should they be caught billing both warranty and the customer. If the faulty part is covered by warranty the costs (with certain exclusions) should be billed to warranty.

I can fully understand why the service advisor is loath to outright state that you won't get a bill though. You need to be aware that if the garage looks at your fault and it is not warranty, then you will be paying. Far too many customers think the very presence of warranty means they won't have to pay no matter what, but that isn't the case.

As an example, say they look at your wing mirror and see it was previously smacked off something, and as a result there are wires for the electrics broken. Thats not warranty and now you owe them the money. If he tells you right now that warranty will cover the cost you will probably try to hold him to that even if it turns out that you should be paying. Thats one possible example, there are thousands of others.

There are so many variables involved in various repairs, the service advisor is hedging his bets because he knows full well that he doesn't have all the information and he doesn't want to make promises that he won't be able to uphold later, and because he also knows there are a lot of awkward customers out there who will latch on every little word and try to use it as leverage. There are ways to handle the situation, but I can understand why he is being vague at this point.

bucketybuck

Voodoomelon wrote: »

That's mental, how could they possibly think they can get away with charging you, did you buy the car new yourself? You shouldn't have to pay for a thing under warranty.

Warranty is not some magic word that pays for all, the more people learned exactly what it involves the less misplaced complaining there would be.

Damien360

Ah lads. Dealer could open the mirror cover, take a quick look and tell if it is customer damaged or not. 3 minutes work on a one year old car. Might actually get a repeat customer from goodwill alone. Then explain why it is/not warranty. We are not talking about an engine that won't start after driving in a puddle and is not warranty.

clogher71

bucketybuck wrote: »

If the fault is a warrantable item then you should not receive any bill, in fact for many manufacturers the dealer will fail a warranty audit should they be caught billing both warranty and the customer. If the faulty part is covered by warranty the costs (with certain exclusions) should be billed to warranty.

I can fully understand why the service advisor is loath to outright state that you won't get a bill though. You need to be aware that if the garage looks at your fault and it is not warranty, then you will be paying. Far too many customers think the very presence of warranty means they won't have to pay no matter what, but that isn't the case.

As an example, say they look at your wing mirror and see it was previously smacked off something, and as a result there are wires for the electrics broken. Thats not warranty and now you owe them the money. If he tells you right now that warranty will cover the cost you will probably try to hold him to that even if it turns out that you should be paying. Thats one possible example, there are thousands of others.

There are so many variables involved in various repairs, the service advisor is hedging his bets because he knows full well that he doesn't have all the information and he doesn't want to make promises that he won't be able to uphold later, and because he also knows there are a lot of awkward customers out there who will latch on every little word and try to use it as leverage. There are ways to handle the situation, but I can understand why he is being vague at this point.

Well said....

Ordering parts or quoting for repairs over the phone can be a minefield, people don't know their left from their right, or sometimes even the make/ model or year the car they are driving.....

bucketybuck

Damien360 wrote: »

Ah lads. Dealer could open the mirror cover, take a quick look and tell if it is customer damaged or not. 3 minutes work on a one year old car. Might actually get a repeat customer from goodwill alone. Then explain why it is/not warranty. We are not talking about an engine that won't start after driving in a puddle and is not warranty.

And what if it isn't damaged, they spend 2 hours checking the wiring and the motor and all seems fine. Some thinking outside the box later they find some coins stuffed into the cigarette lighter which are playing merry hell with fuses and relays across various electrical systems and ultimately causing the wing mirror fault.

Wouldn't happen? Actually, I seen it happen myself for a simple radio fault.

Fact is, at this point the dealer doesn't know what the real story is, and believe me, the real story is very often different to what many customers want it to be. Again, I can totally see why the service adviser won't commit to anything over the phone.

Thats not even getting into the fact that in a busy dealer the car needs a booking, and they can't assume it will be a 3 minute job so need to act accordingly. And hey, if its as simple as you suggest then who needs the dealer anyway, right?

pred racer

All good points re: the dealer having to cover themselves etc, but they don't have to be dicks about it either;)
I'm sure the points raised here could be explained in a friendly way??

Del2005

pred racer wrote: »

All good points re: the dealer having to cover themselves etc, but they don't have to be dicks about it either;)
I'm sure the points raised here could be explained in a friendly way??

When dealing with customers with complaints there is no friendly way, ask anyone who ever worked in a consumer facing roll.

bucketybuck

pred racer wrote: »

All good points re: the dealer having to cover themselves etc, but they don't have to be dicks about it either;)
I'm sure the points raised here could be explained in a friendly way??

A good service adviser will handle the situation, explain it in a way that reassures the customer while still protecting his company.

So no, there is no need to be a dick, but in fairness we have no evidence that the dealer is being a dick here, all we have from the OP is the dealer saying:

"you'll have to bring it in", "we'll have to see first"

Being non-committal is not really being a dick, its just being realistic. The OP wants to hear the magic words that he will 100% definitely not have to pay a penny for any work done on his car, but he needs to accept that this may not be the case and he won't know for sure until everything is checked out.

pred racer

Del2005 wrote: »

When dealing with customers with complaints there is no friendly way, ask anyone who ever worked in a consumer facing roll.

They haven't had a chance to get anything done to complain about yet

Sorry, if a garage is unwilling to answer a simple question " if it is a warranty item will I still have to pay the €85" then they're being dicks.

Yes I understand why the charge is in place.

Yes I understand why non warranty work can be hard to explain to some people, believe me I deal with warranty claims multiple times per day.

If the conversation happened the way the op said it did then they are not worthy of the op's custom and They should find somewhere else.

Voodoomelon

bucketybuck wrote: »

Warranty is not some magic word that pays for all, the more people learned exactly what it involves the less misplaced complaining there would be.

I'm well aware of how warranties work, I run my own business selling products that customers tamper with all day long, so believe me I understand the sellers side of things when it comes to warranties.

But the service manager wouldn't give a straight answer, that's bullcrap.
It's also just a faulty wing mirror. So bar there being impact marks on it, and assuming the owner hasn't had a stab at a repair, how could it not be a warranty item on a year old car?

Absolutely, mention their's a potential diagnostic fee if it turns out to be a non-warrantable repair, but don't be an arse about it and accept it's likely an electrical or parts fault that has nothing to do with the customer.

challengemaster

Even if it wasn't a warranty item - bar the mirror being faulty through damage, it would fall under the sale of goods and supply of services act as "not being of merchantable quality / fit for purpose".

bucketybuck

Voodoomelon wrote: »

But the service manager wouldn't give a straight answer, that's bullcrap.
It's also just a faulty wing mirror. So bar there being impact marks on it, and assuming the owner hasn't had a stab at a repair, how could it not be a warranty item on a year old car?

You don't know its a faulty wing mirror and certainly the service advisor doesn't know yet if its a faulty wing mirror. And even if there is no damage on the mirror, maybe its just a blown fuse? Fuses aren't covered by warranty.

The OP says its a year old, maybe its actually 13 months old? Contractual warranties are not straightforward and year 2 regularly has different coverage than year 1, and anything to do with the wing mirror could easily not be a warrantable item in year 2 even if not damaged.

Fact is, there are lots of potential reasons its not a warranty item on a year old car. It could well be, but experience teaches every service adviser out there not to talk in absolutes. Yes he could explain all this to the customer and a good service adviser would do so, but knowing some of the customers out there I can understand why he doesn't at any time want to even imply that the repair will definitely be covered.

challengemaster wrote: »

Even if it wasn't a warranty item - bar the mirror being faulty through damage, it would fall under the sale of goods and supply of services act as "not being of merchantable quality / fit for purpose".

I wondered when the old sale of goods crap would be spouted by somebody. If the OP wants to go down that road then more power to him, I'm a long time working in main dealers and I haven't yet ever seen it be applicable.

Nonoperational

Hilarious you trying to defend this. All they have to say is that there will be a charge if it's not covered by warranty. No need to apply a diagnostic fee regardless.

Hope I never come across yourself in a service department. And people wonder why main dealers get a bad name.

bucketybuck

Nonoperational wrote: »

Hilarious you trying to defend this. All they have to say is that there will be a charge if it's not covered by warranty. No need to apply a diagnostic fee regardless.

Hope I never come across yourself in a service department. And people wonder why main dealers get a bad name.

I hope you never meet me either. In my garages everything is 100% above board and customer focused while still aiming for zero comeback, I have never once tried to fleece or mislead a customer. So I do hope you go to a different garage, one that may not be run the same way as mine.

Main dealers get a bad name because peoples expectations are misled by a lack of knowledge and further misinformation from know it alls. Say what you will about service quality, but a main dealer is an order of magnitude more honest than the independent sector, and thats from somebody who spent a lot of time working in both.

mickdw

Look, you cannot defend this. The ops car is under warranty.
All the service guy had to say was:
Bring in the car and we will check it out.
If it's a Warranty item, we will sort it 100 percent free of charge and give it a wash and vacuum too before you pick it up.
Service guy can then add that if it turned out to be user damage or anything like that, obviously it wouldn't be covered.

Telling a customer under warranty that they basically have to pay 85 quid and see about warranty after is not acceptable whatsoever.
I've had numerous dealing with Main Dealers while under warranty and never has a question of payment come up. I understand that if they found I had caused something they would then say that it cannot be repaired under warranty.

bucketybuck

mickdw wrote: »

Look, you cannot defend this. The ops car is under warranty.
All the service guy had to say was:
Bring in the car and we will check it out.
If it's a Warranty item, we will sort it 100 percent free of charge and give it a wash and vacuum too before you pick it up.
Service guy can then add that if it turned out to be user damage or anything like that, obviously it wouldn't be covered.

Telling a customer under warranty that they basically have to pay 85 quid and see about warranty after is not acceptable whatsoever.
I've had numerous dealing with Main Dealers while under warranty and never has a question of payment come up. I understand that if they found I had caused something they would then say that it cannot be repaired under warranty.

I never said the dealer acted perfectly, I said I can 100% understand why they want to be non committal and why they stopped at "Bring in the car and we will check it out".

They never told the customer that "they basically have to pay 85 quid and see about warranty after", they did not do that. Instead they basically stayed quiet and said nothing, and once again I know why they did that, because so many dealer customers will use every word said to try and have an argument.

If you say to certain customers, "Yes there is full warranty on that car and the repair will be covered as long as there is no damage or the fault wasn't caused by the driver", what you will hear when you present a genuine bill is "He told me there is full warranty on the car and the repair will be covered, I'm not paying anything". I've seen it a thousand times and more, there are people who have no shame and will try anything not to pay.

Again, the service advisor could have patiently spent more time explaining exactly what will happen, he could have handled it a bit better. But I will defend him because I know the type of circumstances that lead to a genuine dealer having to hedge their bets with every customer.

bucketybuck

mickdw wrote: »

Look, you cannot defend this. The ops car is under warranty.

And as an aside, you don't know the car is under warranty, there are plenty of reasons this repair may not be.

Juran

HI all - appreciate you responding. The next day the mirror motor was working fine again so I never did end up bringing the car to the dealer. I imported the car from the UK - I didn't buy it from the local dealer, if the problem reoccurs, I will be brining it in and hope that I don't incur any charges as she is still under warranty. Thanks