The consumer’s issue:
The consumer purchased an 18-month extended vehicle warranty policy for their ’63 plate executive car, and confirmed on the warranty company’s website that they agreed to all the terms and conditions associated with the agreement. Before the policy could start, the business required a mainly visual tool-free 20-point vehicle health check to be completed at a third-party garage, which the consumer did.
However, following the inspection, the consumer claimed that the vehicle was returned with an airbag warning light on the dashboard and a noise from the driver-side suspension – issues which they explained were not there previously. Even though the policy had not started, the warranty provider arranged for the car to be seen at no cost by another approved workshop, which identified a fault with the airbag control unit and advised that any repair would need to be completed by one of the vehicle manufacturer’s franchised dealers.
The consumer maintained that the third-party garage had caused the airbag issue when it jump-started the vehicle after the health check. The consumer said the warranty provider should take responsibility because the health check had been arranged for the purposes of taking out the warranty policy. To resolve their dispute, the consumer sought reimbursement for repair-related costs which were quoted at around £750, a full vehicle check by an authorised dealer, as well as compensation.
In response, both the garage and warranty provider disputed liability for the faults that came to light on the consumer’s vehicle. It said the health check identified some pre-existing issues with the vehicle and that the relevant warranty cover had not yet started. It also relied on evidence from the authorised dealer, which said the battery recharge when the car was jump started, could not have damaged the airbag control module because an intervening control unit was unaffected.
The warranty provider maintained that the airbag issue was an internal fault with the module and offered a goodwill settlement of £565 and the option to cancel the policy, but the consumer declined, and the case was referred to The Motor Ombudsman for review.
The case outcome:
The adjudicator reviewed the documentation provided, and explained that a warranty provider is only responsible for covering repair costs when a covered component within an agreement suffers from sudden or unexpected failure. In this case, the dispute related to an issue which arose during the health check before the policy started, rather than a claim under the agreement itself.
The adjudicator noted that the evidence did not show that the vehicle’s airbag control unit was damaged or shorted when the vehicle was jump started, and was more likely than not as a result of external or undiagnosed causes. This meant that the warranty provider was not obliged to cover the costs of repair, but it was recommended that the consumer accepted the goodwill gesture that had been offered. The consumer disagreed with the points raised in the adjudication outcome, and requested a final decision from an ombudsman.
In line with the findings from the adjudicator, the ombudsman proceeded to explain that the business’s main liability arose from the warranty policy, but the complaint concerned whether the business should be held responsible for the actions of the third-party garage. The ombudsman accepted that the garage was likely acting on behalf of the business for the limited purpose of carrying out the health check.
However, the ombudsman found that a vehicle health check is ordinarily a visual inspection and does not include substantial repair work or intervention. The jump start was completed after the health check and fell outside the scope of the work the warranty provider had arranged with the garage.
Conclusion:
The ombudsman therefore concluded it would not be fair or legally appropriate to hold the warranty provider liable for any fault or damage that may have been caused by the jump start.
If the consumer believed that it caused the airbag control unit fault, the appropriate route would be to raise a complaint directly with the third-party garage. The dispute was therefore not upheld in the consumer’s favour, and the case was closed.
