Miniman

iTrader: (2)

My car is now about 3.5 years old, it's out of warranty, which I accepted at the time.

In Nov 2003 I had the battery replaced at the dealer as I couldn't switch off the alarm.

Couple of weeks ago I had noticed the car proving hard to turn over, last week I took the car for a service and mentioned that the battery might need looking at. No mention of any problems with the battery after I picked it up.

Last night I was stranded at Heathrow unable to start the car, called RAC got it going, but this morning the same thing, no charge left in the battery.

I believe I am going to be OK as the battery should have a 3 year warranty on it. Called the dealer this morning to find that because the battery was replaced under the 3 year car warranty, the battery itself also only had a warranty that lasted with the car warranty. So despite the fact the battery is only 2.5 years old and knackered, it cannot be replaced under it's own warranty.

I am mighty pissed off by this. Effectively it means that if you were to get something replaced a day before your 3 year warranty ends and it breaks 2 days afterwards you would have no warranty on it!

I think this is crap. Battery manufacturers give 3 years warranties on all their batteries. Why should the one in my car be any different. And because it's a weekend I cannot actually complain to Subaru UK and therefore have to replace it myself today and hope that I'll get my money back. What also annoys me is that if the battery had been properly inspected at the time of the service maybe it could have been "saved", not that we will ever know now!