So wife calls me and says her car is making a screeching noise and blowing black smoke. I tell her not to drive it one inch further and have it recovered - which she does. The garage it was recovered to immediately diagnoses turbo failure.

Wife thinks, I have an extended warranty, it covers turbo failure so all looks good. Garage removes turbo for inspection and reconditioning and files a claim with Momentum.

Momentum send an independent engineer to inspect the turbo. While he was on the garage premises talking to the mechanic there, the engineer says bearing failure.

About 2 weeks pass with garage owner ringing every day for authorisation and getting the runaround for no good reason. Eventally lost patience and send recorded delivery letter asking for final position. Received a letter back which you can now view at:

http://www.oldcoach.plus.com/

Our landline records incoming numbers as does wifes mobile. Once call was received by a 01738 number, no other attempts to call were made.

I have contacted the FSA to try to understand how an FSA-regulated company can sell and administer policies which lie outside of their FSA authorisation. Their letter says "Authorised and Regulated by the FSA" at the bottom - and its all over their website. It seems highly peculiar if not actual misrepresentation to then be selling warranty policies which lie outside that regulation.

Now onto the engineers report. The failure mode is correct, but of course it was a sudden failure. My own engineer's report says:

Rotating mechanical components will always be subject to wear. Under normal circumstances, this leads to a gradual reduction in performance. However in this case the turbocharger central bearing - which is not a serviceable component - failed resulting in blade damage. This failure lies outside the normal expectation of progressive wear.

So there you have it - it was driving fine one minute, but undriveable the next, yet Momentum say it was not a sudden failure. Their engineer says service wear, but another says component failure. Fortunately statistics are on our side - if turbos failed like that through service wear they would be popping all over the place and changed as regularly as brake discs - clearly they're not. Turbo reconditioners are not as common as brake and clutch centres.

Wife has another car to drive. Fortunately, as Momentum have dragged this out for a month now.

There are some more interesting details concerning the independent engineers report - but I need further legal advice before puttign in the public domain just yet.