My (from new) Grand Cherokee has served well, driving round town and pulling a little caravan a handful of times, for just over 41,000 miles and 51 months. Until two weeks ago.

We drove from Norwich to Brighton on Saturday and then round Brighton a little. In total, we went about 220 miles, with no issues. I parked on the road that night, and when I came to start the car in the morning, it refused to engage a gear of any sort (automatic). I called the AA, who ran diagnostics but could only reset warnings and get it into 'limp home' mode (3rd gear). They drove it round the block like this (a few hundred yards), and we came to the conclusion that it needed to be got to a garage.

We came home and the car was taken to a Brighton dealership. They have subsequently reported to me that, after changing the filters and fluids, they can still only engage 'limp home' and reverse, and that I need a new gearbox.

Clearly, I believe that a gearbox shouldn't go within this space of time or distance on any car, but especially a 5.6l off-roading towcar. It's not even serviced until 105,000 miles or 84 months, and then it only gets a filter and fluid change. A replacement box will cost £4,500 fitted.

I have started to challenge Jeep on this. I've had three responses:

Dealer from which I purchased the car - "We would submit a claim to Jeep for an OOW repair contribuition"

Dealer who has the car - "We won't submit a claim - you're outside of their criteria"

Jeep UK - "You're out of luck. Oh, but we'll look into it"

The reference to "outside of their criteria" is what worries me here. The criteria include a time-bound one (4 years - we're slightly over this) and a requirement that the car has been serviced exactly in line with their guidelines. They say it should have been serviced every 6 months or 7,500 miles. In the last two years, the car has been driven very little (we bought a new runaround), so hasn't been doing the mileage, but I also decided not to service it every six months. It has, however, been properly serviced 4 times by the selling dealer.

So to get to my two questions:

1 - Can Jeep (or the dealer who sold it to me) reject out of hand any claim, even in court, based on the fact that it hasn't been serviced exactly to their requirements, even though the "fit for purpose" rule clearly applies and the part still wouldn't have been serviced even had the car been?

2 - Is it likely that the selling dealer is much more willing to help at the moment because they know that, if they don't get Jeep to contribute, I'll win a court case against them which will cost them potentially a lot more?

Thanks,

Paul