Finally, after nearly a year of wriggling, those lovely, co-operative and helpful people at WH paid me the £6000 they owed me after my '99 Sti went bang with 27k on the clock.

It died last October when the Oil Pressure relief valve stuck open. The resulting bearing failure trashed every last bit of the engine except the block.

But guess what? According to their assessor, It was ACTUALLY caused by there being either (1) Low oil at some point during its life (2) Dirty oil galleries causing oil starvation or (3) a manufacturing fault in the oil pump.

The assessor was so two faced that he actually agreed the claim verbally to the garage, then went away and claimed one of the three above was the cause - conveniently none of which are covered. They wouldn't put any reasons in writing or let me see the report either.

It took countless solicitors letters before they agreed to pay out, then they stalled for weeks before issuing a cheque to my old address. Eventually, a threat to issue bankruptcy proceedings against them finally got their attention and they paid out (not to suggest for one minute that they are anything other than a credible, solvent and ethical company )

Anyway, the above are the facts of my unhappy experience with WH and i'll leave you to decide if you want to lob them £600 for a premium like i did. Next time i'll take Pete Croney's advice and stick 50 quid on a horse at 33-1 as i reckon theres a better chance of it paying out.

If anyone else is having problems, by all means e-mail me. My solicitor did a marvellous job and got the result. I'll be happy to supply his number!

Russ

 

1st I've ever heard of them paying out - Well Done

 

Russ, that's a great result - well done!!!!!

 

Nice one and quite rare from what I've heard.
I don't suppose he'd care to name the horse and the race?

Mike.

 

Russ

Nice one

The timing couldn't be better either. I was reading last week that their insurers have pulled out and they are not able to insure their risk. The rumour was that if an alternative insurer could not be found soon, they would not survive.

Mike, If I told you that, where would the fun be

 

They're so predictable bless 'em. When the guy phoned me up "bad news i'm afraid Mr Pullen....." I said "let me guess - low on oil at some point during its life?" Kind of put him off, he got all stuttery on me.

The final irony was that on the very day they told me they weren't paying out - the sales department phoned me and advised me my policy was due to expire and would i like to renew it.

Surpisingly, i declined, and he got some career advice.

Overall, a truly miserbale, costly and frustrating experience.

 

It's the same result on ALL the other marques BBS's
FTO, GTO, GTiR, Type R, you name it WH get slagged for the lies,
crap service, etc on every board

Mike

 

Fair play to you Russ, most people would've just given up & taken it that it wasnt covered. I worked in dealerships for years watchin the rip off b***ds duck out of paying so many claims & if they did pay out, the labour rate was so low it still cost the customer a fair wedge.

Well done mate