Hello everyone,
Just had a £300 bill and I’m hoping it wasn’t all wasted !
On our way to Devon on Monday ( a 250 mile trip) for a family break. In the wife’s car , a 2015 Vauxhall Astra Estate. Car was brought 6 months ago and came with a Spoticar 12 month warranty.
Driving along the dual carriageway at 6am and suddenly the yellow engine management warning light comes on , along with the traction light and the ESP service light. My wife who was driving said it stated losing its top speed,
Brilliant ,that’s all we need ! Especially with two young kids in the car. We know there’s a retail park just a few miles up the road , a safer and more convenient place to wait for assistance.
We call the AA and after two hours the guy turns up. He puts on the diagnostic machine but no codes come up, just says misfire apparently. The technician says probably the spark plugs and maybe the coil pack too but changed the spark plugs to see if that’s the problem. He didn’t want to initially change parts that don’t need changing. He took the car off and went to collect the spark plugs , he came back about 20 mins later. No warnings light and the car drove fine.
After changing the park plugs , he told us to drive around the car park whilst he kept his diagnostic machine in and his laptop. Car seems fine and we’re about to go after paying him £50 for the spark plugs when all of a sudden the ESP light comes on again. He then has another look, changed the coil pack which cost us another £240 quid ! Car seems fine and we make it to Devon with no further problems. So spent just under £300.
I call Spoticar warranty phone line , to ask if these parts were covered. However, the kicker is , and I didnt realise this, was that under the warranty, we also got break down assistance and were supposed to call that number in the event of breakdown. And because I went straight through to the AA using my own policy, they won’t cover any works done by them.
My fault entirely I guess but you don’t always remember these things at 6am on a dark car journey with limited internet access and stress!
My question is , does anyone think the coil pack and spark plugs would have been covered by the warranty or is it likely they wouldn’t have been?
Spark Plus And Coil Pack
