Car Craft and their NAC warranty not covering my claim

[deludedandy]

Hello everyone,

 

After my experience with Car Craft and their NAC warranty I decided to join the forum to seek for advice and share my story.

 

Let's start from the beginning:

 

Back in September 2010, I was a proud owner of a Fiat Grande Punto 1.3 diesel (2007) with 22k miles, cheap to run, reliable, never had a problem with it.

 

The only issue: it was too small for me (I am 1.91cm and 130kg) so on the 11th of September I used Car Craft's website to value my car.

 

After around 2 hours I received a call from my local Car Craft (Chertsey) asking me if I was looking for anything in specific and invited me to go and visit them as they had "some very special offers reserved for me that day".

 

I said to myself: "Why not?!" it was Saturday, 10:30am and had nothing special to do that morning, but I HAD NO INTENTION TO PURCHASE A CAR THAT DAY.

 

At around 12:00pm I walked into the showroom. I was greeted by a young woman (SEEBA) who kindly offered to "show me around". Straight away she asked me some routine questions, she showed me few cars and then started her sales pitch.

 

I told her I was not interested in buying a car that day, as I would have to sell my car first and I was not happy with their evaluation (the website had offered me £3500 on a car worth nearly £6000), so I was about to leave when I saw this wonderful Black Vauxhall Antara 2.0 Diesel.

 

She must have noticed the glow on my face and started this strong sales/friendly pitch. And let me tell you, she was good. By that time she had built a rapport of trust with me, I was hooked.

 

The car was really lovely. Big for a guy like me, low mileage and in very good conditions.

 

The problem was that I DIDN'T WANT TO BUY A CAR THAT DAY and moreover it was well over my capabilities as it was marked at £15,499, whilst my budget was £7000 max (after the sale of my Fiat).

 

She told me: “don’t worry about that, my GM is here today and I can talk to him for a big discount”, to which I replied: “Even with a HUGE discount I wouldn’t be able to afford it anyway as I don't have that kind of money.”

 

She told me: “That’s ok. We’ll apply for a finance for you” to which I replied, “I don’t think it will go through as I have just got a new job a week ago and I am still on my first 3 months’ probation period.”

 

She told me: “Don’t worry. We’ll find a way”

 

That’s when the hell started:

 

We went back inside the show room, she had a look at my Fiat while another “friendly“ guy was talking me into how good that Vauxhall Antara is. Then after a VERY LONG bargaining with the sales manager the deal was done:

 

£15,499 - £1,459 discount - £4,480 part-ex= for a total of £10,000+1 year warranty+4 services

 

Not bad, you would say, but there was a little problem: my credit history was good but the fact that I had recently changed job wouldn’t give me good chance to get the finance approval.

 

They (Car Craft) told me that by taking this 5 years extra warranty I will have good chance of getting the finance approved, costing me £45 a month extra but it will give me full peace of mind and the assurance of getting the finance approved.

 

We moved into another room, she asked the address of my employer and printed some paper stating that I was working with them for more than 3 years. I signed.

 

I then moved to another room, by that time it was 6pm and I was exhausted, another guy (PAUL H.) talked me on how good was this NAC warranty that they will cover for almost anything, that it will cost me only £45 a month, it’s £1,5 a day, some cigarettes stuff and bla bla bla….I guess I just wanted to go home, I signed some papers, got my brochure and left.

 

Another important thing I would like to mention is that Seeba followed me to my home because she had to collect a copy of my ID and the documents of my old car, after that I was so shattered that I went straight to sleep.

 

The following morning I started realizing how a fool I was. I found myself with 2 finances:

 

1) £10k for the car with a 13.1%APR sums up £17,626

 

2) £1795 for the NAC warranty with a 19.7%APR sums up £2,742

 

Meaning that the car is costing me a total of £20,368 (and don’t forget my part-ex worth £5500).

 

I rushed there straight away, I spoke to the sales manager, telling him that I wasn’t happy with the way things went with this sales, that Car Giant had the same exactly car for £14,000, that I wanted to cancel the warranty as it was useless.

 

He told me that he will speak with the head office and he will try to get some money back for me. In regards to the warranty there was nothing I could do as the fine print “clearly” said that it couldn’t been cancelled, so I asked if I could save money if I cancelled the finance and pay by credit card which I did, ending up paying “only” £1821.93.

 

Needless to say that I have never heard from the manager. Meanwhile my life started being very ethic, I was too busy to look into this matter, but also didn’t know what to do.

 

I went back there in 2 occasions to get my services done, and they always been very helpful and professional (Jo is an angel). During my second visit I also confronted (in a civil manner) the sales manager again, telling him that I was still waiting to hear back from him; he just said something which I didn't understand and avoided me for the rest of my stay at the show room (I have been there 1 hour waiting for my car to be serviced).

 

By that time I learned how to live with this whole situation

 

THIS IS THE BEST/WORST PART:

 

Until last week; in May '11 I noticed that my steering wheel was getting harder to manoeuvre. Brought the car to a local mechanic and he noticed that the fluid in the little tank was low, he added some and that's it. Same thing happened last week, I was told that the thing could be serious.

 

I decided to bring the car to a Vauxhall main dealer, I tried to speak many times with NAC before as I wondered what the procedure should have been, which I did manage to speak after many attempts.

 

I was told to bring the car to a VAT registered repairer, then the repairer will need to contact them explaining the problem so that they could evaluate if cover it or not.

 

The investigation led to the fault of the power steering rack (covered by their T&C) for a total of £1872.84 which they said that WILL NOT BE COVERED.

 

This because according to them, the fault is down to tear and wear but Vauxhall is saying that this is not the case as the car has only done less than 34kmiles.

 

Now my question is: what should/can I do to sort this warranty bit?

 

Let’s don’t mind about their sales techniques (I accept that it was mainly my fault), but I can’t accept the fact that NAC (part of the CC group) are not willing to cover the breakdown because they just don’t want to. Isn’t this a breach of the contract?

 

Please help.

 

Regards,

Andy

Edited October 19, 2011 by deludedandy

[deludedandy]

LATEST UPDATE:

 

I have a Which? account that includes legal advices, so I call them up and explain the situation, they recommended to start a complaint procedure with black horse (which by law they sold the car to me and are responsible for any issues). I have to say that their rapid response is reassuring, so they have started the investigation and will keep me on the loop.

 

Anyway...I am still VERY upset with NAC (and car craft in general), I am aware that this (so called) warranty is just a useless piece of paper and their only intent is to rip an additional £1900 off from the customer. According to Which? I should (and I am entitle to) reject the warranty and ask for a refund as they mis-sold me with something that is worth NOTHING.

 

Has anyone managed to get their money refunded? If yes, what did you do?

 

How should I notify NAC about this? The only address I can see on the booklet is the adjudicator's and is almost impossible to get hold of the customer service advisors.