AJC

I've just received a warranty 'renewal' letter for my Trackstar system. They want £35 for the next 12 months, saying that the standard call out charge is £75 plus parts and labour for any maintenance or repairs.
Now, I paid shed load of money to have this thing fitted in the first place, then £120 a year to carry on using it and now they have a cheek to demand another load of money from me. Am I the only one who thinks I'm being ripped off here?
What really pi**es me off is that there is no mention of this in any of the documentation I received when it was fitted, nor on their particularly crummy website.
Has anyone else had this renewal letter and what do you think?

Andrew

Tinsta

how long have had the trackstar? there's no mention of a warranty expiry in the literature I have.. (p1's have them as standard..)..

AJC

I've had the system about 18 months - that's weird too - why isn't the warranty valid for 12 months or 24 months?
Anyway, they'll be getting a phone call from me tomorrow to ask for some justification for this.

Andrew

Ray T

I'm with you on this one, i'm sure i was told the unit was guarenteed for ten years when i had it fitted in april 2000, i also paid up front for lifetime monitoring and all the extras, this came to £1185 at the time, then there was the backup battery extra fitting charge a year later (when it eventually became available).
I'm still trying to figure out how the warranty has expired at 21 months seems very odd timing to me!!
I shall be having a word with them tomorrow , and see what there reasoning is.

annoyed

ray t

just checked out there web site http://www.ractrackstar.com/home2.htm
under the purchase now button they have the terms and conditions link, in here it states a 12 month warrant, but nothing about extra fees that i can see.

[Edited by Ray T - 1/23/2002 10:34:33 PM]

Silent Monkey

Sounds like they're trying to sell an extended warranty, with the letter possibly worded such that it gives the impression you have to pay. Nice extra income even if only 25% of people quietly pay up and if it's worded correctly then many will pay.

Not having seen the letter I could be totally wrong of course

Shaggy Dog

Got one too

Mine is 30 months old & the first time I've had a "warranty notice". If I find that it doesn't do as it says it should then I'll be shouting.

I've had 4x units in that time, mainly 'cos of u/grades ( ) with the last one about 16 months ago.

Previous to this "notice" I'd been happy with the service - but...

PaulMc

I too have had this letter 2 days ago. I have a P1 and owned it from 3000 miles and 5 months ago. The car was originally registered though in August 2000. So this letter and period of time does not add up. I shall speak to my dealer now and then phone Trakstar and see what they have to say.

whip

I also received a letter yesterday. I can't say how old the unit is as it was fitted by the previous owner before I bought the car, but as it's a MY00 it can only be 2 years old maximum. I'll check the documentation tonight.

Keep us posted.

Whip

CaptainBeakie

It seems to me it's a general mail out to get some more income. (Those monet grabbing bar-stewards).

I'd be interested in seeing what the outcome is, because I fancy getting one.

Ian Cook

Has anybody considered the fact you would only know it had gone wrong after your car was stolen as well ? Fat lot of good additional warranty is going to do under those circumstances ??? wow yeah they replaced the unit but the cars a smouldering heap !

banshi

Ian,
If it stops sending a signal or sends a faulty one they know and send out an engineer.

Took nearly two and a half hours, only 10 mins to fix the fault. The rest of the time was spent trying to find the unit

AJC

Well, I spoke to their Customer Services the first thing this morning - the first of many judging by the above list!

The woman that I spoke to said the the standard terms and conditions only include a 1 year parts and labour warranty for the unit and they have had a couple of incidents where things have gone wrong outside this time. This has ended up costing them (the customers, I mean it's always the customer who ends up paying through the nose isn't it?) a load of money to get fixed (I got the impression 'fix' in this case meant a whole new install).

So this is their 'solution' to the problem. She emphasised that it is totally optional but it's easy to see where it's leading. If anything does go wrong then they can say - 'well, we gave you the option of taking out our warranty for a very reasonable £35 a year and you turned it down so sorry, sir, but that'll now be megabucks to fix it.'

When I asked how we are supposed to know if it is working OK I was told that it sends a signal if it's unwell (or doesn't send one, or some combination of the two, I can't remember exactly which). Anyway, if you want to check it out then you can always ring them and they'll test it to let you know all is OK.

I then got onto the subject of my £120 a year subscription. This, apparently, is to pay for a combination of the costs of someone sitting at a terminal for 24 hours, 365 days a year and the airtime that the unit uses on one of the mobile phone networks (obviously, I reckon my unit must be female to spend that much money a year on phone calls just to say where it is).

This poses an interesting question for me. Given that the unit is useless unless you renew the subscription, in effect am I really just 'renting' it from Trackstar. When I paid to have it fitted, there was no breakdown of the actual cost of the unit versus the cost of the installation. Do Trackstar have an obligation to ensure that the unit works and is fit for purpose, even when outside its warranty period, especially given the ongoing annual subscription? I'm sure I remember a recent consumer program on TV stating that the 'one year manufacturer's warranty' for electrical goods was actually irrelevant and that if you could demonstrate that an appliance had failed during normal expected use, then you were within your consumer rights to expect it to be repaired or replaced. Are there any lawyers out there who would care to comment on this?

My final point in this long and rambling discourse concerns insurance and the attitude that might be taken if your unit stops working, your car is stolen and it turns out that you had decided not to take out the warranty. Could this have any impact on a claim you might make. Are Trackstar even obliged to tell you that the unit isn't working if you ahven't taken out the extended warranty?

Anyway, I'd be interested in responses to all or any of my thoughts above.

Cheers

Andrew

PS despite all of the above, I'll probably end up paying the money just for peace of mind, even though I do think that it is daylight robbery.

[Edited by AJC - 1/24/2002 9:23:33 PM]

bug-eyed wonder

Will someone please tell me the above is a typo error, surely £35 per month is wrong. Is it £35 per year or what is the situation. I've had one fitted for a year now but can't get a definitive timescale for this additional warranty cost from the above posts. and [img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]

AJC

Sorry, my mistake, I've amended it to say £35 a year. (Oooops)

PaulMc

Well, I have spoken to my dealer and they suggested I speak to Subaru UK as they thought it a little odd aswell. So I have spoken to Customer Services and expalined the case. My argument is that with my P1 if I buy a new unregistered car WITH the Trackstar already fitted, NOT an aftermarket item, then surely it should be covered under the 3yr warranty. Just as I wouldn't expect to pay an extra warranty for the tyres or wheels, steering wheel, pedals, etc just in case they failed would I? As far as I am concerned the Trackstar IS part of the car. They are going to get back to me on Monday.

Sue

Don't know if anyone else has received a follow up letter to the original warranty renewal request,but this morning I received correspondance from Trackstar apologising for "an error in administrative software" which had resulted in the renewal being mistakenly sent out.They reassured me that the unit fitted to my P1 was still covered under the 3 free years warranty (a fact which hadn't escaped me and had caused me some disquiet!)and did a spot of well deserved grovelling!
Interested to know if anyone else has had the same letter?...is this an instance of "Scoobynet People Power" in action?..lol

P1 Enthusiast

Sue i got the same letter, opened it as i was about to ring them and give them what for! Phew, might have to ring up later to say sorry for ranting irishman they had spoken to earlier

I think the backlash might have caused either a quick rethink or a swift admin response!

PaulMc

Got the very same letter ! My assumptions were correct

AJC

Unfortunately, I'm not a P1 owner, so no 3 year warranty for me. However, I'm starting to have some serious concerns about RAC Trackstar's customer management systems following all of this. Let's hope that the systems that support the tracking part of their business are a little more 'organised', shall we say?

Andrew

Steve vRS

Just had my letter. What is the latest on this matter? Has anyone's unit developed a fault?

Steve

Makalu

Got the letter - have read the thread - have to agree with AJC's long(ish) post....

Paying additional 'warranty' fees was not part of the original transaction and at no time did they say thay, for them to contiunue to provide the service they describe after the manadatory 12 month warranty expires, the customer is liable to keep the unit in a working condition through a further warranty scheme.

I think they are skating on some very thin ice on this one.

Thievin g1ts!

Mak.

PS. Overall, I think the information RAC Trackstar provide about how the system works is crap... I had to ring them after installation to confirm the darned thing was turned on and working because it was ages before I got any confirmation stuff through the post!

The Zohan

This could have implications on your insurance as well if a tracker type system is required or you get a discount for having one.