I have been waiting since last April for my new car to be repaired under warranty and there’s still no date in sight. I bought the car, an Alfa Romeo, on personal contract purchase [PCP] finance in March last year and will be paying for it for four years. Two days after collecting it, warning lights appeared and I was told it required a new gearbox unit and heat exchanger.
The gearbox eventually arrived in July, but I am still awaiting the heat exchanger. I have been chasing the dealer every week since the end of July and keep being told “our hands are tied”. I’ve been given a courtesy car but it is not the same spec as my vehicle.
RR, London
A global shortage of spare parts is causing havoc across the country. Insurers are raising premiums or withdrawing cover because of the consequent repair delays, thieves are harvesting components from vehicles to sell on the black market and manufacturers are diverting supplies to production lines rather than repair garages.
Meanwhile scores of motorists are in limbo. The attempts of DP of Cirencester to help the planet hit the buffers last July. His 17-month old electric Kia Niro stopped functioning and the battery was found to have died. Three repair dates came and went and, six months on, he is still waiting. In the meantime, he is having to drive a petrol courtesy car. “One reason we bought the car was the long warranty,” he writes, “but a warranty is no use if parts cannot be sourced.”
AM of Nottingham has been waiting a mere four months to get his Honda back. It failed its MOT due to a faulty seatbelt and is therefore uninsurable. Like DP, he’s been given three unfulfilled repair dates. “The car is needed for travelling to work and taking our two elderly mothers to medical appointments,” he says. “Honda UK said the part is being chased weekly by their procurement team as we are a priority. They would not supply a courtesy car as our vehicle is over five years old. Nor have they offered any compensation while we wait. We have heard nothing from them since.”
This column likes to report success. Recalcitrant companies usually cave when a headline looms. But car manufacturers are the most obdurate sector that I deal with, along with housing developers. Their strategy, be you a customer or a journalist, is to erect a high brick wall and hope that you’ll grow weary of banging your head against it.
RR wrote to me in October. At first, there seemed to be signs of progress. You were given a date in December. Nothing happened. A week later, Stellantis Alfa Romeo told me that it hoped to be able to update you in the “coming days”. I asked what timescale it had in mind. The following day it informed me that the parts had been supplied and the work was in progress. However, the dealer then admitted there was no part and no news.
And so it continued, except that both head office and the dealer stopped responding. Last week, after I warned Stellantis the saga was going to print, the dealer told RR it would transfer a heat exchanger from a new vehicle of the same model. Watch this space!
Kia and Honda failed to respond at all when I contacted their head offices. The usual suspects are blamed for the supply chain problems – Covid, during which manufacturing was stripped back, and the war in Ukraine, where neon used in the manufacture of critical semiconductors is produced. In the past, companies have miraculously conjured up “unobtainable” parts after I queried delays. Not this time.
Dealers may not be able to control deliveries, but they can keep in touch. So can head offices. The silence of all three manufacturers is a disgrace. RR is protected by the Consumer Rights Act 2015, since his car was brand new when it failed. This entitles customers to a refund or replacement if a purchase develops a fault within the first six months. If the latest promise is unfulfilled, he should request a refund from his PCP provider, citing the legislation, and if it refuses he can take his case to the Financial Ombudsman Service.
AM could also try his luck under the act, which protects customers up to two years after a purchase, although once six months has elapsed the onus is on the customer to prove the fault was not there when they bought the car. All three can complain to The Motor Ombudsman which will adjudicate if more than eight weeks have passed since they raised a complaint or if the dealer issues a letter of deadlock.
Bill Fennell, chief ombudsman and managing director of the Motor Ombudsman, said it had been hearing from customers whose repairs have been delayed. He said: “The Motor Ombudsman’s new car code, covering 98% of all new cars sold in the UK, includes the provision (in clause 4.3) that spare parts will be made available throughout the production of a model and for a reasonable period thereafter’.
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