DonnieDarko

dunno. you *should* be ok. i don't think we know of any people who've had the warranties pulled retrospectively

gubby

I have to say a few weeks ago I was getting a little agitated over this but looking at it philosophically

a) I have a letter confirming my cross border warranty. The dealer I use looked at my documents and said everything looked ok.

b) I have four e-mails from Liaco telling me that they will honour the warranty & should I have a problem they will advise me what to do.

c) Motorpoint have assured me until this is cleared up they will intercede and sort out any warranty problems I may have ( although I really wouldn't like to put this to the test). However to Motorpoints credit reading another post they have settled another members claim when he couldn't get clearance from IM.

d) I am driving a car with a proven reliability record.

So. I have decided to play it by ear, take it one stage at a time and shall contact Motorpoint shortly to see if there is any developments, but at the end of the day if I have to accept a Motorpoint Warranty then so be it.

I will not let this detract from the pleasure of driving the best car I have ever had and a Bargain to boot.

tim's wrx

Definitely the best approach - got my WRX wagon in Jan 05 from Motorpoint - almost 10,000 miles so far but no probs and the car just gets better every time I drive it !

Vipa

bump

DaveWoo

Hi guys
I bought my WRX from Motorpoint at the end of September and had my Warranty / Service book arrive a couple of weeks back, totally unaware of all this hassle, which I caught up with here on Wednesday!
However what I did today was go down to my local Subaru (well local to where I work) garage where I had my 1,000 mile service done before my book arrived, to get it stamped as they told me to do when the book turned up! Whilst there I got them to put the car onto the warranty system as instructed in the letter from Liaco, which went on OK. Now I am not saying that I won't get a problem when it comes to getting warranty work down, but I turned up, gave my V5, Service book and Invoice from Liaco over the counter - did not mention Motorpoint, but did not get asked anything, so have not lied, or anything illegal, so I shall have to wait and see. I did also speak to the owner about the 3,00 mile service and he did not bring anything up about any problems with imports.
Don't know if this helps, but I do know that outside of dealer warranties do not cover everything a dealers one does as I had a RAC gold one on my last car, so a Motorpoint one won't be as good as a dealers one & I did a quote for one online, which I got through the post today (with Warrantywise) which was £1196 for 36 months!!!
Cheers
Dave

Vipa

Bump

Mjb1957

Hi Gubby ,

I totally agree with you my import WRX I got from Virgin Cars has been first class, I have had no problems with it since I took delivery on 1st Sept 2005 and 4770 miles later and it is still going strong .
The warranty issue is being dealt with by my supplier , I have also contacted Office of Fair trading who want to be kept informed of any developments.

gubby

Hi m8,

Glad that you too are enjoying your car.

I did 250 miles in mine yesterday to the West Midlands & back and she went like a dream.

Could you give me a contact address for the OFT. I may also drop them a line.

Vipa

Still a total blanket of silence from all corners!!!!

I have an appointment with My Solicitors next Tuesday, We'll take things from there!

V

HOWY

Have you contacted the office of fair trading too???

DonnieDarko

i've gone to barclaycard (Consumer credit act 1974, section 75 -> equally liable)
trading standards and motorpoint.

fallen back in love with the scoob, so i've canned my idea of making them take it back and get either a Golf GT TDi or A3 TDi (both 140bhp, but better lower torque and fuel economy in the 50's)

its just too fast and great on the corners, and Liaco are getting back to me about whether they will let me PPP it- i'll have to wait till next time i reinsure though.

i will send an email off to OFT as well i think.

this is their email address -> enquiries@oft.gsi.gov.uk

the site is http://www.oft.gov.uk

gubby

I will compose something and send it off to OFT at the weekend.

I did e-mail trading standard 6 weeks ago but didn't get a response.
So from diesel Golf too PPP'ing your Wagon. Nothing but clear blue sky now m8.

NulaT

Hope you like my picture in What Car January issue (p.90). Not my best side! Matt Sanger was very interested in the position regarding parallel imports such as mine and pressure like this might help. Just out of interest I've contacted all manner of people, including the Chief Exec of FHI. Only SMMT have shown any interest and even there their first response was to support Subaru(UK)'s request for yet more information from me. Subaru(UK)'s general attitude seems to be that if they ask for more and more information that eventually I'll just go away (I won't) or that I'll fall foul of some unknown (to me) regulation. I've also tried the DTI, OFT, several different Trading Standards offices, the AA etc. The first two haven't even replied after three weeks. My MP was more interested and he's contacting the DTI on my behalf. Perhaps once Vipa has contacted his solicitors we should band together as a class action.

HOWY

Good to see you have been active, have you emailed any TV news programs?? You never know it might stir things up

NulaT

I've tried Channel 4, but they showed no interest. By chance I emailed them again yesterday, but more out of hope than expectation.

DonnieDarko

email sent to top gear

motoring@bbc.co.uk

yeah can't wait for PPP, gubby! bit of a change i know, but the golf's bored me, and the A3 & 320d's were both pretty overpriced, where you're looking at £19k for a 10,000 mile car as opposed to £16k including security for a brand new WRX. plus no 4wd and 0-60 in around 9 seconds

DonnieDarko

oh yeah and topgear@bbc.co.uk

Phil

Just out of interest and sorry if I haven't picked up this from the previous 9 pages

Who are you proposing to take legal action against?

MotorPoint
or Subaru Malta
or Subaru UK
or FHI

I have a good understanding of contract law but couldn't get to see how you could sue anybody but the person you bought the car from

Phil

DonnieDarko

^^ that's why we all have to go after motorpoint. it's up to them to sort it out with any other parties.

although as i paid a £1000 deposit on my barclaycard (under the Consumer credit act 1974, section 75) they are equally liable.

This stands for pretty much any purchase between £100 and £30,000 (and you can claim the full amount even if you just pay your deposit on the card)

i believe that the deposit doesn't even have to be £100, as long as the total purchase is.

NulaT

I've now emailed both the BBC addresses. Let's hope they are interested. Got a deeply depressing response from OFT (pm me if you want it in full), but the essence was that the UK dealer was probably acting illegallyMy situation is made more complicated as mine came from Cyprus and 'the EU's body of laws is suspended in the North' (not yet sure whether mine came from North or South - Kattamis the dealer is based in Nicosia - is that N or S?onder2. However, the OFT did finish by saying that, if it's a genuine EU car then Subaru should honour the warranty under EC law. OFT says that in order to ensure this we should then contact our Trading Standards people (I've already done this with no joy at all)

Silver Knight

Are all the people contacting the office of fair trading complaining about the illegal sale of the cars or something else??

WRX54

This is a right sorry mess. I have contacted every complaints avenue i can possible think of and to be honest i either don't get a reponse or the response i do get is a just a statement giving both sides of the argument when what i really want is someone to say that one side is either right or wrong and to take the case on.

I have given up trying to contact Subaru uk as i still haven't got this letter detailing that i haven't got a warranty despite being told so many times it is on its way.

I have had a slightly more positive repsonse from the SMMT who have asked for a copy of my file of all my correspondence which i have sent off now. I am disppointed at not getting a response from What car and Car magazine or Watchdog.

This is now a waiting game but however long it takes to sort out Motorpoint are still selling cars so there will be even more people with the same problem with no clear resolution.

donutman

Try a search on google and you will see it is in the north m8


http://www.cypnet.com/.ncyprus/city/nicosia/

wrxseeker

iTrader: (1)

Nicosia is divided in two - North and South.

Dont worry the dealer/distributor is in the South (Greek Cypriot) EU part and is therefore covered by EU regs.

pete1976

Haven't had time to read all of this thread but just wondering what people's advice would be to me.

I'm currently in the process of buying a WRX from Motorhouse 2000 in Cannock. It's imported from Cyprus. Motorhouse promised me the balance of a 2 year manufacturers warranty and I had no reason to doubt them (hadn't read any of this site at that point) until I spoke to Greenlight about my insurance and, to cut a very long story short they refused point blank to cover me as they said Subaru wouldn't honour the warranty.

Motorhouse have repeatedly insisted that the warranty WILL be honoured. Differently to Motorpoint (and to other cars Motorhouse deal with) they register the customer as the first owner of the vehicle and this, they say is what means that the warranty will be valid.

Anyway I've now gone with a different insurer (Keith Michaels) and I'm picking it up a week on Saturday. I was very excited about it until I read this thread!

So I guess I probably should be asking Motorhouse some pretty searching questions before I complete the purchase. Should I be asking about the underseal also? That was something definitely not mentioned. Does anyone know of any other differences between these cars and the UK ones (apart from the alarm and the underseal)?

One more bit of info.......when I was looking around, I spoke to Motorpoint and they were only talking about a 1 year warranty. I guess it's their own rather than a manufacturers.

Thanks for any advice.

DonnieDarko

**EDITED*****

differences-

no underseal (about £85+vat)
no cat 1 alarm (£300)
no tracker (£300)
no locking wheel nuts (£35 if you want 'em)
oh and no warranty ?? (I'm sure this will eventually be sorted out)
no free 1000 mile service (mine was £165 inc VAT+oil)

*probably* little chance of fitting PPP and keeping warranty (if available)

on the up side you are saving around £5000, and if you are sold the car with a warranty, they are obliged to provide it, or compensate you to your satisfaction

DonnieDarko

OFT Responce- w@nkers!

Thank you for your recent enquiry

We are sorry to hear about the difficulties you have experienced.

Unfortunately we are unable to assist you on this occasion. The Office of Fair Trading does not have the power to provide advice on individual complaints, or to help consumers to seek redress. Our primary duties include:

the enforcement of competition law
the regulation of the consumer credit market through a licensing system and
the co-ordination of enforcement action throughout the UK, with the assistance of our other regulatory partners.

The Office of Fair Trading can also investigate markets that do not appear to be working well for consumers and complaints or information received may be forwarded to one of our market investigation teams for their consideration.

However in this instance, we suggest you contact Consumer Direct. (http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk) for advice on this matter. Consumer Direct is a telephone (08454 04 05 06) and online advice and information service for consumers in Great Britain, supported by the Department of Trade and Industry. It is currently available in East of England, East Midlands, London, Scotland, South East England, South West England, Wales and Yorkshire and the Humber. If you live outside these areas we suggest you contact your local Trading Standards Department; they can advise you of what your individual consumer rights are in this matter. They can also advise you of any avenues of redress that may be open to you. The contact details for your local TSD can be found at:

http://www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/.

You may wish to use a free on-line service called Consumer Complain (https://www.consumercomplaints.org.uk), to register your complaint to your local Trading Standards Department.

We hope that this information has been of use, and that this matter will be resolved to your satisfaction in the near future.

Regards

Mr Yemi Ajana
OFT Enquiries

HOWY

Yep not the most positive of responses but maybe the issue would come under the heading of enforcement of competition law as IM appear to be trying to stifle competition.

THe consumer direct people I spoke to in Yorkshire awhile ago about another matter were quite helpful and they ask for the name of the company you are having problems with and this is I think logged on a computer system so I suppose if enough complained they may investigate. They also have a number of standard letter templates on the web site which might help.

wrxseeker

iTrader: (1)

Donnie, I know your pi**ed about the warranty issue, and you have every right to be, but dont scare the poor guy totally - other than this warranty issue there is nothing wrong with EU imports.


no underseal - Possibly less than a uk car but should have some (probably enough, mine did.)
no cat 1 alarm - Yep
no tracker - a UK wrx doesn't come as std with a tracker only the STI (and 300 ltd edition)
no locking wheel nuts - yep
oh and no warranty ?? - possibly, but the guy mentions balance of 2 year warranty which is a bit confusing as they have 3yrs AFAIK.
no free 1000 mile service - yep

WRX54

I had the same response from the OFT.