The consumer’s issue:

The consumer bought a used crossover SUV, and took out an extended warranty policy after the manufacturer’s warranty had expired. Whilst driving on the motorway, the car suffered from a loss of power and broke down, and was towed to a local garage. They discovered a faulty turbocharger, and the consumer proceeded to contact the warranty company to make a claim on their policy to cover the cost of the repairs.

At this point, the consumer was told that a thorough assessment was needed to establish the root cause of the issue, but as they could not be without the vehicle as they used it to get to work, and the investigation by the warranty provider did not take place on the scheduled date, the consumer went ahead with the repairs.

However, the assessment subsequently took place, but the business rejected the consumer’s claim because the correct claims process had not been followed, and it believed the issue with the turbocharger was also pre-existing.

The consumer disputed this, citing a full service and MOT history, whilst the vehicle also underwent a health check before the policy started, at the warranty provider’s request. Furthermore, the agreement explicitly included coverage for wear and tear, which was the reason provided by the garage for the turbocharger failure.

The consumer therefore believed that they were eligible to be reimbursed for the replacement of the turbo, which cost in the region of £2,000.

The case outcome:

The ombudsman considered the evidence from both parties, and noted that the warranty policy set out the process that should be followed when a claim is made, as well as what the warranty did and did not cover.

Specifically, the ombudsman noted that the policy dictated that no repairs were to start until the business had given authorisation. In this case, the business was not initially convinced that the claim fell under the terms of their coverage. Therefore, it requested their own inspection to obtain further information.

However, by the time this took place, the engineer noted that their assessment was restricted due to the faulty turbocharger having already been removed and replaced.

Based on the course of events, the ombudsman stated in their decision that the claims process was clearly set out in the policy, and that it had not been followed by the consumer, and meant the warranty provider could not fully assess the issue against the terms of their policy.

Additionally, the ombudsman noted that, when the consumer first contacted the warranty provider about the faulty turbo, the business replied with an email outlining the claims process. This contained a section in bold marked as “IMPORTANT”, and clearly repeated the policy wording in that repairs could not begin without prior agreement from the warranty provider.

Conclusion:

After considering the facts of the case provided by both parties, the ombudsman noted that a warranty policy has two aspects. These are namely the claim process that is to be followed, and the coverage offered by the policy.

On this occasion, the ombudsman noted that the process had not been followed by the consumer, impacting the ability of the warranty provider to assess the validity of the claim.

As such, the ombudsman did not uphold the complaint in the consumer’s favour, and stated that the business did not have any obligation to cover the cost of the repairs given the process had been made clear to the consumer on multiple occasions.