Third year warranty issues abroad

[briwy]

Just to make everyone aware of what happens abroad if you break down and have to have work done in the third year from new.
The thread Dead Cali explains what happened to our van but I think most people aren't likely to be aware of the warranty procedure and it certainly isn't made clear by VW Assist.
The VW warranty is for two years and the third year is a dealer warranty here in the UK. In many parts of the continent (France being one of them) there is only the two year VW warranty so if you need work done in the third year you have to pay the garage doing the work before they will let the vehicle go.
VW Assist then told me to contact VW Customer Services on return here in the UK to organise a reimbursment of the payment to the French dealer.
On contacting VWCS early today they say this has to be done through a dealer here in the UK which isn't really a problem for us BUT there is a time limit of fourteen days from the breakdown to get the relevant paperwork to a dealer. This time limit apparently is NOT negotiable so could well be problem in some situations if you are out of the country for a while.
In our case I can now do this as we have another four days grace. However the annoying thing is that I had the van at the dealer's yesterday so had I been told of this earlier I would not have to make another sixty mile round trip to take in the paperwork.
Our dealer wasn't really aware of this procedure and has warned that it may take some time as they have to then contact VWCS who then have to check everything out with the French.
As an aside I also kept the broken belt and pulley as evidence. Obviously depending on the problem this may not be possible.

Also be aware that VW Assist will not pay for the rip off excess insurance for the hire car they provide. I have explained this also in the Dead Cali thread.

 

[T6 CFO]

Thanks forewarned is forearmed

I presume this also applies to any extended warranty period.


Mike

 

[alstevens]

the stuff that dealers don't mention .....

 

[DM]

Thanks forewarned is forearmed

I presume this also applies to any extended warranty period.


Mike

@briwy can confirm but I'm reading this as being a VW Assist issue rather than a factory warranty issue per se.

 

[Broch Hunter]

I may be wrong, but I believe that VW have recently (late 2016?) brought the extended warranty scheme back 'in house' for new vehicles. Certainly this was the line I was given in January this year when I asked for confirmation of the extended warranty I bought with my new Cali. I was surprised that I had no paperwork to verify my extended warranty other than a line entry on the sales invoice. After questioning this I was provided with a copy of an email between VWCS and the sales team confirming the extension.

I assume the extended warranty for @briwy may have been for the previous 'outsourced' version.

 

[briwy]

@briwy can confirm but I'm reading this as being a VW Assist issue rather than a factory warranty issue per se.

I assume that it would apply to extended warranty but wold be an idea to check.

Well it's not really a VW Assist problem other than the fact they didn't tell us about the payment until the garage had told them that we had to pay and how much it was. Generally I guess it's not a problem unless you don't have access to funds abroad or its some vast sum.
Its just that it's not general knowledge even with the dealers here, ours at any rate. Perhaps it is buried deep in some terms and conditions somewhere, the stuff that no one reads until it's too late.
It's the fourteen day thing that I think is completely unreasonable.

Assist appears to be run by the AA through a centre at Dardilly in France, at least it is in France. Perhaps there's a centre in each country.
The UK number was un obtainable when I tried.

 

[bigmac77]

When we purchased our Cali we were told we had a three year warranty, as we were talking about this the dealership business manager was walking past he interrupted the salesman to inform us that if we were on mainland Europe only a two year warranty applied. So by the sound of it he partially new what he was talking about, he made no mention of the possibility of claiming back money from a U.K dealer though. This was on a 2015 vehicle.

Thanks for the heads up, they way our Cali is going I fully expect it to break down somewhere in France.

 

[El Greco]

I bought the extra 2 years warranty and my understanding is that this is with VW. I would think it's unlikely that the third year is covered by the dealer and then revert to VW for the next two years.

 

[Max-Felix]

Just to be clear then if you break down in the third year say in France then you pay the local garage and then have to send physical paperwork to a random VW dealer in the UK who then forward this to VWUK head office who authorise a refund?

What a shonky system worthy of the worst third party budget breakdown cover you might buy yourself in the UK.

Many go away for 4 or 6 weeks in the summer. Do they accept scans or phone pics of documents emailed to the UK? If not then it is impossible.

Surely as in the UK the French VW franchise would need to get VWs authority that they OK a warranty fix before proceeding anyway?

If not what happens if you get back and VW deny responsibility and wriggle out of it when you have already paid the French garage?! And we know how they do anything possible to not pay up or sort common issues...

 

[WelshGas]

The standard EU warranty is 2 years for most makes of vehicles. In the U.K. It is 3, 1 yr from Dealership and 2 yrs from VW.

Now, which year is with the Dealership?

With most consumer products the 1st port of call is the retailer. So is the 1st year with the Dealership?

If the Dealership covers 1 year then how do they manage buying from one Dealership but having a Warranty repair from another?

I just depend on good travel insurance.

 

[briwy]

Just to be clear then if you break down in the third year say in France then you pay the local garage and then have to send physical paperwork to a random VW dealer in the UK who then forward this to VWUK head office who authorise a refund?



What a shonky system worthy of the worst third party budget breakdown cover you might buy yourself in the UK.

Many go away for 4 or 6 weeks in the summer. Do they accept scans or phone pics of documents emailed to the UK? If not then it is impossible.

Surely as in the UK the French VW franchise would need to get VWs authority that they OK a warranty fix before proceeding anyway?

If not what happens if you get back and VW deny responsibility and wriggle out of it when you have already paid the French garage?! And we know how they do anything possible to not pay up or sort common issues...

That's the point, as far as the foreign garage is concerned it is not a warranty claim unless it's within their two year warranty period so you have to pay for it.
It's nothing to do with the breakdown cover really. They have nothing to do with warranty, two totally separate issues.

I'm going in to the dealer to sort out the paperwork tomorrow so I'll find out if they need the original invoice or if copies are ok.
Also if they would accept emailed scans in which case it would make it easier to get within the ridiculous fourteen day time limit.

 

[Max-Felix]

Yes but when you buy a UK VW as with most makes here you get three years EU wide warranty and breakdown cover. The two go hand in hand as in your case - a breakdown occurs followed by a warranty claim!

Seems extraordinary though that in the EU (and presuming Germany?) you only get two years when Kia et al give seven years here. Not sure what they give EU customers?

 

[Cali4nia-Dream]

Like El Greco we bought the extra two years to get 5 years in total, I had asked the dealer
"Could you confirm the price of the extended warranty and what it covers for those extra 2 years"
and was advised by email
"Extended warranty is £329.00 plus vat, this is an extension of the manufacturers , so covers everything that the manufacturer’s warranty does."
There was no physical paperwork, we were advised that the records on the system get changed to show the extra cover. There was equally no mention about pay and claim back if abroad.

 

[briwy]

Been to the dealer today to sort this out.
Very helpful but basically no clue re the procedure as they hadn't come across it before.
Their warranty guy rang VWCS who also didn't appear to know what to do either but eventually it seems this is the procedure.

You pay the foreign garage and get an invoice which is obviously in the currency of that country.

This invoice has to be submitted to a UK dealer no more than fourteen days from the date of the invoice. NOT from the date the van broke down which I was told initially by VWCS.
.
The dealer will accept scanned email copies so if possible get the repairing garage to do this.
If you don't have email capabilities abroad then I guess this is the only way to do it.
If you are not returning within the fourteen day window you MUST do it yourself or you will not get reimbursed.
Probably best to get the repairer to email a copy to you if possible to save hunting around for a scanning facility.

The UK dealer will want to know the exact Sterling ammount you have paid and if possible the exchange rate.

On return to the UK you have to visit the dealer to sign the normal warranty form.

The dealer then clears it with VW and issues a cheque or bank transfer to you for the ammount in Sterling.

Our dealer agrees that the fouteen day cutoff is totally unreasonble and makes it unnecessarily more complicated but again confirms there is no way around it.

Moral is; don't break down abroad.

 

[El Greco]

Does this procedure also apply if the repairer is a VW franchised dealer???

 

[briwy]

Not sure that you mean but I thought all VW dealers were franchised.
If you used a non VW dealer abroad I guess you might struggle to get your money back.

 

[hirsty]

What a nightmare @briwy, hope things are resolved speedily & thanks for sharing for wider benefit.

A minor addition on the scanning / receipts / email point - we submit our expenses receipts at work electronically now, I've found a great scanning app called Scanbot which produces PDFs to email onward, or store to the cloud:

https://scanbot.io/en/index.html

Works much better than taking photos on my iPad & iPhone and I think works with Android too. I now scan every piece of paper I'm given by default and store it to Google Drive.

 

[Shadrack]

A very informative and helpful thread Brown. Thank you.

I also purchased the extra two year warranty, does this include an extra couple of years VW assist?

 

[Shadrack]

Brown...... Oops, Sorry Briwy, (damn spell checker)

 

[briwy]

Just to finalise the thread I now have all my money back. Bank transfer from the dealer last week. He apologised for the delay but it seems VW here have to check with the garage abroad for some reason so that took about three weeks. Anyway, happy ending.

 

[Hotel California]

Not a penny in from your side ?

 

[briwy]

Not a penny in from your side ?

Nope, well yes actually. The cost for the rip off hire car insurance excess. But that won't happen again now that we have the yearly one for about thirty five quid.