Nope. I'd be astounded if you got anywhere at all with it as dealers have a million and one ways of wriggling out of any warranty issue.

Optimistic as ever

The warranty was for 5 years so ran out in Jan. Full dealer service history etc. Spoken to the manufacturer and they will offer parts against the initial diagnosis but no parts guarantee nor will the £750 I pay for labour cover any additional work following the initial 'fix' if required. The nature of the failure was that all the oil and coolant was pumped out of the coolant reservoir (and proceeded to soak the offside tyre and brake) over the course of a 40 minute motorway journey. I only stopped because of a loud mechanical noise that developed, there were no warning lights (oil nor heating). Quite glad I didn't have to perform any heavy braking or cornering maneuvers TBH.

Anyway, the consumer rights act 1979 etc etc, suggests to me that if a product fails within 6 years the burden of proof onto the consumer to prove the fault was there from when purchased. So my argument hinges on the fact that these things shouldn't fail so soon. They are not service items and so should last the lifetime of the vehicle and that the lifetime of the vehicle should be longer than 7/8 months outside of warranty and only 74k miles to be of appropriate quality.

I met with the retailer this morning and they were obviously hard nosed about it and said that 74k miles is acceptable quality and when I ran through the list of other things that have been wrong with the car (top suspension mounts that only last 25k miles, cracked heat exchanger, failed clutch position sensor, rust, failed wing mirror), they were still unwilling to accept my point of view that the quality of the car is questionable at best.

They made a verbal offer to do the work for £300 if I can still get the manufacturer to provide the parts, but wouldn't put that in writing. It still doesn't mean there won't be something else wrong with the car caused by this failure, so the risk is still stacked on me and so the legal route which, if I win, would entitle me to a like-for-like replacement (obviously a working one!).

Given the car cost was £12k new and I've probably spent about £1000 on servicing since, I can't really see how it can be argued that it is of appropriate quality, and the the cost of repair and then potential fix is not really something that can be readily absorbed. It's not a £500 TV or something, it's value is £'000s...

Still, it's finding examples in case law that is proving difficult.

Edited by Badadmcmad (21 Sep 2015 9.35pm)

D'oh!