Firstly, the 3 month autogroup 'warranty' is utterly worthless, and is the garage's way of trying to get away from their legal responsibilities.

From the CRA (Consumer Rights Act) any fault that occurs within the first 6 months of ownership is assumed to have been 'present or developing' at the time of sale, unless the VENDOR can prove otherwise. So if you had (for example) a blown gearbox within 6 months, it would be up to the vendor to replace, entirely at their cost. Unless, of course, they could show that you'd been ragging the gearbox to hell, and were responsible for the failure.

As to the warranty for the first 3 months being 'free', it's not free. They've got your details. Prepare to be cold-called, hard-selled, your details sold on to other companies and all the other nonsense that goes on.

Having said all of that, the price is also a part of what you can expect : we had someone on here the other day who'd bought a 1999 Grand Cherokee (a private sale, in that case, where CRA doesn't apply), and 2 months later was complaining about all the faults and problems that it had. A quick autotrader search showed similar cars for sale at £1000 or less, and even when they were new they were horribly unreliable. At 17 years old they're pretty much fit for the scrappers.

The Autogroup warranty is, as I understand it, an in-house warranty from the dealer (three-letter acronym, multiple sites across East Anglia).

I've just bought a car from them myself and have chosen to buy an extended warranty from them as part of the deal. Whether it's worth it or not remains to be seen. The policy documentation looks comprehensive and reasonable, and compared to indpendent third-party warranties it seemed a much better deal. There's not a lot of information about the TAG warranty online - doesn't seem to be anyone shouting to loudly one way or the other.

My suspicion is that the free three months may be a marketing ploy to get the TAG warranty name in your mind and thinking about extending it. I doubt its the dealership distancing itself from the standard consumer rights, just making the most of them to advertise it's extendedwarranty policies.

You pays your money, you takes your choice..

Ha thes fools just weasle out of anything... dont go near them or usedcar123.... 1020 miles on my car and its wrecked.... no help whatsoever from them then they wait with there responses so your MOT lapses then boom... no claim... Be smart and avoid at all costs.

I was persuaded to buy a car warranty by
ProCars Bawtry - an agent of The Auto Group.
The car was sold to me as newly serviced and
MOTd. I queried a clause in the policy about
the car needing to be serviced within a month
or 1,000 miles and was told not to worry
about it as it had just been serviced.
When the car broke down the Auto Group asked
for the warranty invoice and I duly requested
this from ProCars. They refused to provide
the invoice and were extremely unhelpful and
rude. The AutoGroup then refused to pay as I
could not provide the proof of service.
The repair to my car is major, in excess of
£1000.
This is yhe first warranty I've ever bought and it will be the last and next time I will insist on proof of service!