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KIA Sorento 2006 XT Auto. - Warranty Company, Garage, responsibilites - MARTIN COLLIER

I bought a car from a garage. 2nd Nov. Came with 6 months warranty. Garage said to contact waranty company with any probelms. Warranty company said to contact garage. Whats my next move? Garage is 80 miles away. Garage said warranty company would direct me to a local garage to look at propbem. Any ideas.?. 4WD not engaging , never has. Garage says it was working as far as they knew... Next stop, Trading standards? Martin

KIA Sorento 2006 XT Auto. - Warranty Company, Garage, responsibilites - RT

Your sale contract is with the garage - they're legally responsible to fulfill their liability under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (CRA).

Within 6 months, which it is, it's up to the garage to PROVE the 4wd was working at point of sale.

You may need to get the vehicle repaired locally, at your expense, and then use the Small Claims Court to sue the garage - but you need to inform them in advance and give them ONE chance to repair it.

KIA Sorento 2006 XT Auto. - Warranty Company, Garage, responsibilites - SLO76
How much did you pay for this thirteen year old car? A work colleague recently bought one a year younger for £700 and on my inspection I found it to be utterly rotten underneath. No warranty company will realistically cover something like this, any policy will be full of loopholes and small print and any dealer flogging stuff like this will know every trick in the book to avoid any highly unrealistic legal obligations.

How can anyone guarantee a thirteen year old car? Don’t buy something complex like this if you’re on a tight budget and can’t afford to write it off if anything major fails on it. I doubt you’ll have any success with citizens advice or trading standards but you can try. At the end of the day you cannot possibly offer a 6mth warranty on such an old vehicle and the law is unrealistic here. The dealer will be trading as a barely solvent limited firm so they can walk away from any court orders etc.

Save your time, money and sanity and learn from your mistake. Buy a more fitting budget car instead. That’s not to say you shouldn’t have a pop with the trading standards of course but there’s almost zero chance of success.

KIA Sorento 2006 XT Auto. - Warranty Company, Garage, responsibilites - 72 dudes

Nope, I don't agree with SLO on this one, despite his vast experience.

That £700 heap he mentions has nothing in common with the OP's problem.

I've done a 100 mile radius search for Sorentos from 2006 and the average price from a used car dealer is around £3200 with the highest at £5k. The cheapest heap is £1500.

Regardless, the OP has a right to expect the 4 wheel drive function to work properly. It's a 4x4 for goodness sake! It's not a private sale so the garage does have legal obligations.

I'd agree with RT, you probably don't want to spend time taking it back to the dealer 80 miles away, so push for the warranty company to fulfil their obligations.

But first, check the small print on your warranty documents and make sure that the 4x4 transmission system is covered. If the warranty is s***e and excludes it, then you're probably back to small claims court, but as SLO says, the garage may not pay even if they lose.

One final thought: If you're going to buy a car from 80 miles away, why on earth would you not check something as basic as the 4 wheel drive system engaging, before you pay, or even before you collect it??

KIA Sorento 2006 XT Auto. - Warranty Company, Garage, responsibilites - paul 1963

Martin, how much did you pay for it.....if it's not being to nosey?

Not that it will help but you really should have made sure it was all working tbh

I presume you've looked underneath to see if it's all connected, it's not unheard of for some unscrupulous people to disconnect the rear drive.....

KIA Sorento 2006 XT Auto. - Warranty Company, Garage, responsibilites - Brit_in_Germany

Is the prop shaft there?

www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=110587

KIA Sorento 2006 XT Auto. - Warranty Company, Garage, responsibilites - gordonbennet

Checking for 4WD engaging on any 4x4 is difficult on a test drive unless you know what transmission wind up feels like, and when exactly to straighten up again so no damage is done to the system, and no dealer is going to allow you to take the thing onto some soft to prove it either.

This is the other problem, most people won't know what the dangers are of a locked centre diff are on grippy ground, so ignorant use can easily damage the systems, hence partly why so many are now electronically controlled AWD systems, and the vast majority of owners will never need to lock the centre diff manually.

If this is the old model, does it have manually locking front hubs i wonder? where the hubs are free wheeling until off road use is called for when the driver gets out and turns the hub manual switches to engage front drive, and manually disengages after (driver still has to select the centre diff to engage the transfer box to drive the front diff)...might be worth a look, and if the front hubs are auto check in the handbook how to engage and disengage those too, these things are not always as simple as they might appear.

KIA Sorento 2006 XT Auto. - Warranty Company, Garage, responsibilites - SLO76
“Nope, I don't agree with SLO on this one, despite his vast experience.

That £700 heap he mentions has nothing in common with the OP's problem.

I've done a 100 mile radius search for Sorentos from 2006 and the average price from a used car dealer is around £3200 with the highest at £5k. The cheapest heap is £1500.”

Point I’m making is that it could be a sub £1,000 heap. Yes if it cost £5k then some recompense should be expected but is not a given. I suspect this will turn out to be a cheaply bought car from a typical dodgy Joe outfit with a warranty worth no more than the cost of the paper it’s printed on and in such a case a cheap 13yr old car cannot be guaranteed by anyone no matter what the law states. Plus that £700 heap actually looked ok at first glance, the buyer genuinely thought he’d scooped a bargain until I got underneath the thing. That said it does drive fine.