Warranty Company refusing to pay - Long Post - sorry

[painter]

charlock,
your post has had 105 views and counting. Are auto protect aware that their response is being monitered by JEC, and indeed could be monitered by many more on 'other' Jaguar clubs. This seems an open and shut case so far as warranty conditions are concerned and I cannot imagine they would want to appear in this light to so many 'prospective' clients. (It could also get far worse for them). I don't see anything wrong with name and shame, but it is of no benefit unless the company involved are aware that their response, or lack of, is being posted here, there and ererywhere. I hope they choose the correct option eventually.
As a matter of interest the previous owner of my 96 XK8 had the gearbox rebuilt at circa 70k miles, not sure of all the circumstances. The pregnant silence from Jaguar is worrying.

[Barrie05]

Andy

Hope you get some help from Graham good luck and let us know how you get on

Barrie

[charlock]

Thought I should round this off. I've decided not to go any further.

I finally got a copy of the assessor's report after a lot of obstruction by Autoprotect. The report concludes in brief detail that the bearing failed through wear. The conclusion is based on "probabilities" and "likelihoods" at the age and mileage of the vehicle and thus is not particularly conclusive - but can really only be challenged by another "expert" - which is time-consuming and expensive. On the basis of that report, Autoprotect still refuse to make any contribution to the cost of repair. Autoprotect appear to be pretty safe on the letter if not the spirit of the warranty.

The dealer (Kings Road Garage in Berkhamsted) has also refused to make any contribution to the cost. When I started pushing them on this they set the "Legal Attack Dogs" on me in the form of a specialist motor legal insurance outfit called Lawdata. They made it crystal clear they would pay nothing and would "vigorously defend" any claim against the garage. That is a particular disappointment because the service side of the garage has been very good but I think the sales side is well below par. I'm surprised they didn't make some sort of goodwill gesture to retain the service work but I guess times must be very hard. At nearly a year after the sale, I'm told it would be hard but certainly not impossible to make something stick - but again significant time, effort and expense would be involved. As it happens, a fellow club member had a parallel experience with Kings Road and has recommended someone else to service the car - guess where I'll be going in future

I had some email correspondence with Graham Searle and Dave Marks - both were helpful and supportive.

My conclusions:-
If you're looking at a high mileage car, buy privately and forget about a warranty - and use the saved money for repairs. And definitely don't buy from a certain outfit in Berkhamsted.

[Barrie05]

Andy

One of those lessons of life
Now just enjoy the car

regards

barrie

[mike020150]

Hi Andy,
Thanks for completing the sad tale. I can understand your decision. If it were to cost more to pursue the claim... The outcome does rather expose the value or otherwise of anything other than a full blown manufacturer's warranty. And they are far from perfect! Mike.

[jackconcord]

I had just bought my XK8 with an Autoprotect warranty a year ago. After reading some of the posts on the subject of these warranties I, understandably, began to feel a bit nervous.

However, I have to report that my experience of Autoprotect has been quite the opposite of some of the posters. I've submitted 3 claims in the past few months which have all been met (the first 2 - electrical - in full, the last one - gearbox - withan 'enhancement' reduction).

The last claim was substantial, for a complete gearbox rebuild. Autoprotect decided that there was an element of enhancement to the repair, and offered approx. 70% of the bill, which I accepted (it was a substantial amount) as it was clearly in the conditions shown in the contract.

In my case, having kept scrupulously to the conditions, I had no arguments or difficulties with my claims, which were paid promptly. My car is a 2001Y Conv. with approx 75K on the clock.

So - the system does work!

[charlock]

Hi Jackconcord - welcome to the forum.

Very glad to hear it has worked well for you and hope you're enjoying the car.

Your different experience could well be down to differences in mileage (and perhaps the mildly improved economic outlook since last year?).

I've never before needed to make a claim on such a high mileage car. The frustrating thing about my experience of doing so is that the emphasis became the mileage of the car rather than any hard facts about causes of failure. For example, Autoprotect never to my knowledge verified whether the gearbox was original or had previously been repaired - both questions I would expect to have been asked when deciding about wear in the gearbox or indeed any other component. Thus since the assessment was based on supposition based itself on mileage (failed gearboxes don't leave much hard evidence!) the warranty was worthless since on a mileage basis, everything was "worn".

I'm an engineer by training (although I do something rather different now) and worked as an engineer at Whitley in the late 80's and early 90's - so I know my way around automotive engineering. It's clear to me that the assessor was employing a lot of guesswork and it does frustrate me when such a document is used to decide on these things and to paint something which is very grey indeed, as black and white fact. I am certain Autoprotect were wrong in my case - but it is disproportionately expensive in time and money, to sort that out.

Pleased to say that I still love my XKR (now the snow has gone at least )