I bought a new (or so I thought) Megane 2.0IDE Coupe from Motorpoint of Derby on 20th October 2000, they registered it and gave it an X plate. I have done 10K miles and got it serviced 2 weeks ago at a Renualt dealer. Last week it failed to start. The AA diagnosed a serious problem with the injection system and said it need a main dealer to sort it. OK, I thought, it's under warranty. Not so said the dealer, the warranty book is stamped 29th March 2000 with a Renault dealer in Calais' stamp. Motorpoint must have bought it from them then and that's when the waranty runs from. They contacted Renault UK who agreed with them, even though the warranty booket states it runs from the date of delivery (29th March) or the date of first registration (20th October 2000) whichever is the later. The dealer faxed an estimate of the cost to fix it across to Motorpoint who looked at it for 2 days, then said that they were also unwilling to pay anything towards the cost of repair (est £400) either.
Any suggestions as to what I can do? The car has been off the road for a week now and I have had to hire another car. I have arranged for the dealer to fix the car and I'll have to pay for it but I'm not happy about this situation.
Mark.
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I can't help, but I bought a new Laguna from Trade Sales in March 2001 and have learnt that the manufacturers' "12 month warranty" started in Ireland in January 2001. This looks like an important issue consumers should be made more aware of.
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Too right it is Ian!
I have registered www.motorpointless.co.uk and once I've had a reply from the managing director at Motorpoint (and Renault UK as well) i'll be uploading the whole sorry story on to there. Most people are not aware of this, my colleagues at work can't believe it and 2 of them were going to buy cars from Motorpoint as well. I actually found this on the Watchdog website (www.bbc.co.uk/watchdog)
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Phil Grey, a car supermarket owner, told Watchdog:
"There is no difference at all from buying it from us or a UK dealer. It's got a manufacturer's warranty, it's UK spec, it's exactly the same except for the price.
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Yeah right! I also rang the DVLA who looked up the details of the car and said it had not even been registered as an import. They started to cast doubt that it should even have been registered as an X and perhaps should be a W in keeping with the March 2000 date. What!
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Under the Sale of Goods Act, your claim is against the supplier. Although the makers back up the supplier, are you not still entitled to the full 12 months warranty from the supplier dating from when you bought the car? I know the suppliers will try to duck this and try to argue that the claim is aginst the maker, but I don't believe cars are different from any other consumer goods. The suppliers won't like it as they will personally have to pay, but it's worth checking this one with say the AA or RAC legal advice depts. if you are members.
Regards
john
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I sympathise with these problems - I've often scanned these adverts myself. However, I've always mentally added the cost of extending the warranty to three years to the advertised price, to get a true comparison with the 'main dealer' price. Seems to be even more important if this is the sort of problem which occurs. I wonder when they date the extended warranty from???
Regards
John
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I've emailed Honest and the Webmaster to remove this thread as I've decided i'm better of just trying to sort out an amicable arrangement with Motorpoint and/or Renault.
I've just re-read that bit I typed in about the DVLA, it did not read like it was supposed to. I had misplaced the V5 doc, so I got my wife to ring them ( I was at work) to check all the dates on it. I believe the woman on the 'phone from the DVLA said she was expecting to see the word "Import" on the registration details (i.e. Imported by Supplier or something) and it wasn't like that. She did say there were things on it to make her suspect it was an import though. I always knew that it was. I have the Cert. of Conf. and Motorpoint told me it was. When my wife mentioned the date stamp in the warranty booklet she said that if the car had been registered in France would the date stamp in the V5 have to match and the DVLA woman said yes it would and if so then the car would be a 'W' but we'd have to investigate further and she gave me a fax number to contact. I am sure that the car has NOT been registered abroad and thus it should be an 'X' reg like it is and it is correctly registered. Perhaps main suppliers like Motorpoint have a special "fasttrack" registration so their's look at bit different to normal imports or something?
I'm just confused about the warranty. I appreciate that this is probably the case that the warranty for European cars runs from the date of the stamp in the book, but the book itself then goes on to metion the date of registration takes precedence. Anyway, perhaps I was expecting more that I was entitled to as Motorpoint have offered to look at the car in their garage and I just wanted the main dealer to fix it (as it was a very complicated problem).
It also shows that I should listen carefully as when I went to collect the car I was so exicited about getting it, all I was concentrating on when signing the paperwork and the salesman was explaining everything was getting in it and driving away!
The customer service I received from Motorpoint pre sale and whilst I was there was very good and I *will* probably buy a car from them again as their prices are very competative. I think I'll take out an extra warranty next time though to prevent this confusion happening again.
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