pete1976

How much does the 1000 mile service cost?

Locking wheel nuts hardly cost alot.

I think so long as the warranty can be sorted you're still quids in by buying an import. Even if you have to buy your own warranty for £1200 or £1500, admittedly it won't be as good but you're still doing OK considering you've saved in the region of £5k initially.

Silver Knight

[QUOTE=DonnieDarko]OFT Responce- w@nkers!



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.


So the OFT is protecting the Subaru dealer network againist unfair competition from illegal imports purchased abroad.
Sounds fair to me!!!!

DonnieDarko

prices added in.

oh, and also good is that metallic paint is free (costs £350 if you buy a UK car)

DonnieDarko

A bit more promising this time, but still passing the buck to trading standards.

and Subaru ARE going to be investigated (to some degree)

OFT Response 2->

Trading Standards are the best people to approach with this matter and, as they appear to have intimated, you may have rights under the Sale of Goods Act if the goods sold by Motorpoint were not as described. The OFT is unable to help with individual warranty claims.

Second, any warranty offered by a car manufacturer is additional to any rights you may have under the Sales of Goods Act. Although a manufacturer's warranty contract usually simplifies any claim you might have for defective goods it is, in the first instance, for the dealer from which you bought the car from to sort out any problems since the contract of sale is with the dealer and not the car manufacturer.

The manufacturer's warranty contract may, however, be transferable from the original purchaser (which I assume was Motorpoint) to subsequent purchasers but this depends upon the terms of the warranty contract and it would ultimately be for the Courts to decide if this was the case.

Finally, the Motor Vehicles Block Exemption http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/pri/en/...en00300041.pdf recital 17 states that contracts between car manufacturers and their dealers that do not oblige the dealers to honour warranties in respect of any car sold in the common market amount to an indirect restriction of sales and should not benefit from the exemption. This means that, in general, an EU wide warranty obtained through the authorised dealer system should be honoured. However, because your car was obtained from an unauthorised outlet it may be invalidated.

Nevertheless, there may be other more fundamental competition issues that need to be looked at arising out of this warranty issue and I will be contacting Subaru about them.

You should continue to liaise with Trading Standards over any claims that you might have.

SRP

Vipa

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but being the first registered owber has absolutely nothing to do with the warranty being honored or not. I am the first registered owner of mine and the warranty book is made out to me with my name and address in it but IM are still blocking the warranty!.

If you did not sign and date a mandate requesting your intermediary source you a car from the EU PRIOR to them ordering it ('it' being your specific vehicle showing your chasis number) from the originating dealer then IM are quite within thier rights to block the warranty.....

Read back through the thread and you will find the ins and outs of it!

V

comic cuts

Nevertheless, there may be other more fundamental competition issues that need to be looked at arising out of this warranty issue and I will be contacting Subaru about them.

How come you're having to do all this work?
Motorpoint have had your hard earned cash......get them to chase for you. Or maybe they realise they are in the wrong and therefore think it will be a waste of their time?

CC

wrxseeker

iTrader: (1)

My 1st service was £115 all in.

Before all this warranty stuff kicked off it was an easy choice.

As Donnie says hopefully it will be all sorted out soon.

On further point, anyone can correct me if I am wrong:

I dont believe it is "Illegal" for anyone (eg motorpoint, Alliance etc) to sell new Impreza's no matter where they came from.

The only issue here is should IM get involved with authorising (as this is all they do and have ever done) pan european warranty work on cars that appear to have not been supplied directly to the end user by an authorised Subaru Dealer ie bought from Subaru Cyprus/Malta by, say Motorpoint and then "sold on" to you or me.

They have to, under EU law, honour the warranty if you instruct (possibly via a mandate) a 3rd party to act on your behalf to obtain a car from an authorised supplier in another EU country.

I dont think at any point any law has been broken - therfore it appears no one has been doing anything illegal AFAIK.

pete1976

I don't know that was just what they said that they register the Subaru's differently to the other cars for the warranty purposes.

Anyway I've sent Motorhouse a probing email (to try and get an answer in writing) about this and a few other issues; I'll let you know what they come back with.

NulaT

A similar response from OFT:

"We are considering the wider competition issues surrounding the warranty problem. However, it may turn out that there are legitimate grounds for not honouring the warranty if a consumer has obtained a car via an unauthorised reseller rather than directly or indirectly, via an intermediary, from an EU franchised dealer.

Your best option is to pursue the dealer that sold you the vehicle. Under the Sale of Goods Act you may have redress against the dealer since the vehicle may not have been sold as described. Also the dealer is in the first instance liable for any defective goods. TSO are best placed to help you make any claim."

My experience with three TSOs is that they don't seem to know anything about this issue, but I'll try again.

DonnieDarko

i spoke to motorpoint aftersales today, operations director is writing a response to me, which i should have next week.

we'll see what's happening then.

spoke to IM to get them to hurry up & respond.

not holding my breath (for either TBH)

Silver Knight

Motorpoint and the like are not authorised to sell new subarus, therefore under trademark regulations the cars are being sold illegaly, which is why IM can legally avoid doing anything on the warranty side of things.

wrxseeker

iTrader: (1)

They are also not authorised dealers for Ford, Renault, Peugeot or anything other brand they sell but if it was Illegal would it not be the case that all these powerful car manufacturers would have taken legal action to stop them by now ??

I would guess motorpoint have been around for at at least 5 yrs and so have Alliance - plenty of time to stop them.

Also if what they do in selling the cars is illegal, why would IM bother with this warranty crap when they could just stop them selling cars using the means outlined above.

I think it is more a case that IM (Subaru UK) are pi**ed but Fuji who own Subaru dont really care as long as they are selling cars, be it to Subaru Uk or Cyprus or whoever. As I say if Fuji were bothered about trademark they could take legal action against motorpoint etc.

patkin

Hi all Im reading with interest, incidently it is not restricted to motorpoint since Allbrandsnew are fighting the same problems.

Silver Knight

ALL IM ARE DOING IS PROTECTING THIER OWN INTERESTS,WHATS WRONG WITH THAT??

Rabid

Nothing but maybe they should consider reducing some of their obviously massive profit margin and people would just buy from them. If motorpoint can undercut them by almost 5K then they are creaming too much off the top. Obviously they have greater expenses but at the moment they are just taking the p*ss.
I'm thinking of buying a motorpoint car anyway. Compared to getting a MY2004 with 1 yr proven warranty for 15K a brand new car with independant warranty for the same price still seems like a bargain.

wrxseeker

iTrader: (1)

I agree IM are only protecting their interests and they are right to do so, but its the way they are going about it that stinks - as other have said maybe they should compete on price.

Also are you are now saying that selling the cars is not illegal if I read your post correctly ??

What I cant understand is why YOU are getting so bothered about defending IM's actions ??? PS Caps is equivalent to shouting.

Silver Knight

Its not down to IM to compete on price with the imports,
If Motorpoint and the others want to sell new Subarus let them apply to be a dealer with all the costs that means instead of just cherry picking the profitable bits.

Silver Knight

Sorry for caps,used it to show ans to questions.

The people who have bought these imports have bypassed the system unfairly (not the right word) and bought cheaper cars than can be bought in the UK.
Now that the System has caught up with them they are all crying UNFAIR.
One rule for the buyers and one rule for the sellers?

Rabid

That statement is exactly what I'm talking about. There is every need for IM to price their cars more competitively. They are obviously making a fat profit on all cars. From my own point of view I refuse to deal with a company who are using bully boy tactics to protect their own unfair interests.
Deffo a supermarket car for me with 3rd party warranty and I'll use specialists to maintain it and make sure that IM don't EVER get a red cent from me. If more people did that they'd soon drop some of their hefty profit margin.
One sale lost, here's to more.

carnutter

You sound like a right kn*b if motorpoint and the likes can save us the customer thousands of pounds and make a profit then hey LUCKY us looking at the advertising and showrooms that motorpoint have there overhaeds must be HUGE compared to some dealer fore court so where ever you are getting you facts from I have no idea.......

As for that chip on you shoulder ..... get over the fact that you paid an over inflated price for your car

Silver Knight

I have no problem with them selling cars in this country,I do have a problem with whingers who think they got one over the system in this country and when something goes not in their favour its everybody elses fault and not theirs for bypassing the official method of buying cars.

I do not own a scooby and I have bought and sold imports quite happily from Europe and JDM product.
Generally if something is cheap their is a reason and you have just found out one of them

Stainy

The 'you get what you pay for' argument that you are spouting is utter bollox. It's not like a can of heinz compared to the cheap supermarket tin. It's the SAME fookin car you tit. IM might have bigger overheads but £5000? I think not.

However, I agree they have every right to use whatever legal methods they can to protect their income. They are doing this but it might backfire as the only thing they actually do is act as agents to sort out the warranty. It doesn't actually cost them a penny as they claim it back of the originating country.

So whilst they might be acting legally, they are being pedantic tw&ts and it might just come back to bite their (correct spelling used in correct context) **** because people stop using main stealers. I for one have stopped using them and now go to an independant specialist.

Oh and one more thing. Importing a car is 'unfair'? Charging £5000 over the odds isn't ?

DonnieDarko

i would probably have paid up to around £2000 more to a dealer for a new car, not £5000.

Silver Knight

And in the UK arnt they offering free PPP or three years free servicing add that to the other differences Alarm,etc etc and the difference is probably £2k, did you check out the difference in what you were offered for your car as px.
plus having the dealer on your side is worth a few bob as well.

wrxseeker

iTrader: (1)

The free PPP & servicing more than likely came about because of the competion from imports. Depending on when you bought the car these may have not been on offer.

My EU import saved me £3000 (including adding the alarm/wheelnuts). PPP wasnt offered on UK cars at the time but 3yrs free servicing was. I decided that I wasnt sure if I would keep the car 3 yrs so maybe I wouldnt get the benefit of 3yrs free servicing.

I therefore bought my EU car after talking to my local dealer about a deal and even having one of their cars on 24hr test drive - they just couldnt compete on the initial outlay I would have to make. However I still think my dealer is great for getting me the test drive and I given them all my servicing profits and the profits on the (many! ) accessories I buy.

st3ph3n

PPP and free servicing isn't offered now. I think that was more to get 05 cars shifted before the 06 ones came out.

Chins

All the import owners mention various savings, but that assumes people are paying list, which in reality no one is. When the MY05 were running out, with a free PPP and discount, the saving were nowhere near some of the claims on here.

tim's wrx

Think that all these marketing gimmicks used frequently by Subaru UK just goes to show that they have a serious underlying problem with their vehicle prices in the UK. Fuji Heavy Industries and Subaru UK need to slash their car prices in the UK and then we'll start buying from them again. With the extra competition around with Focus ST etc etc and car supermarkets, I don't think FHI or Subaru UK have any other option. At the moment all they seem to be doing is looking for short term solutions including loopholes in EC competition legislation ignoring the fact that we have been in a common European Market since 1973 !!

comic cuts

Just as as an aside.....on Friday I spotted a brand new WRX in the Subaru dealer in Grantham.....Chandler's??? £17,490. 10 miles on clock. Presumably last of current model but nevertheless I know where I'd be buying a new car from under current circumstances! Just need to persuade Mrs CC now......!!


CC

Vipa

And you could still but an EU import (legitimately now everyone knows how to close the loophole IM are using) with a £14 at the start of it rather than £17!!!!!

V