Car parts replaced under warranty are not necessarily under warranty

AH, BMW and Fiat Chrysler, you’ve done it again.

A 1951 Vincent Black Shadow.

AH, BMW and Fiat Chrysler, you’ve done it again.

Let’s start with the Adelaide owner of a BMW 135i Convertible. Last year her car’s fuel pump failed and the local dealer replaced it under warranty. Our correspondent drives on, safe in the knowledge she has an original BMW part fitted by a BMW dealer. Then 4000km later the pump fails again.

This time the dealer tells her there is no warranty on parts supplied under warranty. No, you are not hallucinating. Cost and installation is about $1200.

You won’t be surprised to learn the same BMW fuel pumps in the US come with a 10-year warranty.

OK. I email the corporate communications soldiers at BMW. On our first chat I am advised of the dangers of car owners going to BMW service people who don’t have access to the super-secret company computer programs, training schemes and bibles. “But the question is simpler than that,” I say. “If a part is supplied under warranty do you replace it under warranty if it breaks?” Corporate comms goes away to check. Further calls offer to replace her fuel pump for free. But corporate comms still doesn’t answer the question. Our final phone calls circle back to dodgy non-dealer BMW services and how they could be causing the pumps to break. And the breaking fuel pumps are only an Adelaide problem.

Another BMW owner had her fuel pump fail and had the dealer tell her the “no warranty on a warranty item” yarn. But this owner was a lawyer.

Once she talked some law the fuel pump was replaced for free. I rang my friend (I have two or three) in Victoria, a BMW dealer. Guess what? They are supplying two to three pumps a month and the part has been superseded three times, meaning it hasn’t been a great success.

Now to Fiat Chrysler. Lynn Scott bought one of the first 2014 Grand Cherokees in Australia and has had problems since. Lynn says she and husband Ron “could tolerate some of it if (Jeep) admitted that there were problems and they were going to help us, but the answer each time has been: we don’t know anything; no one else seems to have a problem.

“When our Bluetooth didn’t load all our contacts, I was treated like the stupid woman and told we had too many contacts, it was a Telstra problem or an Apple problem. Our console has failed and yet, despite our repeated questions, the best answer they have given is rats have eaten the wiring.” Apart from that the headlights and camera fill up with moisture and the ABS light is permanently on.

Fiat Chrysler relied to my questions: “All updates and recalls that have been released have been performed on this vehicle. Mrs Scott contacted a dealer as she was unable to download all her music from her phone. There has since been a software update release, which has resolved this issue.”

No mention of the global recall of more than 900,000 Cherokees, including 7800 in Australia. As the recall says: “Due to a disruption of computer communications and loose alternator ground wires, the affected vehicles may experience random or failed illumination of dashboard warning lights and loss of ABS and electronic stability control.”

The moral: don’t buy cars, buy old bikes.

H & H just sold a one-owner 1951 Vincent Black Shadow for $150,000. Only a few years ago these were lucky to break $60,000.

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