My neighbours (who are both old age pensioners) purchased a new Vauxhall Meriva in 2004 from a local franchised dealer, who has carried out all subsequent services on the car. To date the car has covered about 13,000 miles. Three weeks ago the steering 'locked' while they were driving. Fortunately this did not result in an accident as my friend happened to be driving slowly through the village and managed to stop immediately. The cause was diagnosed as a faulty steering sensor and this was replaced by the dealer at a cost in excess of £600. In order to ascertain whether or not this was a common fault, I visited your website and discovered not only that it is a common fault but that Vauxhall had, on several occasions, made goodwill payments of up to 40% of the cost for vehicles which were 4 - 5 years old. My neighbour wrote to Vauxhall requesting such a payment. She quoted the information on your website. In reply she received a response rejecting her request out-of-hand. Please would you be kind enough to suggest if there is another route via which my neighbour could attempt to extract a goodwill payment towards rectifying this potentially dangerous fault? (I understand that the 'Watchdog' programme has recently been targeting faults on Vauxhall cars.)