New Car Rant

[Southy_]

About this time 4 years ago my beloved Golf GTI finished it's slow decline into death and onto the scrap heap, I decided to follow the crowd and look into getting an SUV.

I ended up buying a brand new Hyundai Tuscon N-Line DCT Auto, I figured that following nearly 2 decades of picking the exact wrong pre-owned car in terms of reliablilty that a new car, with a well regarded warranty, would be good. My Wife had bought a new i20 in 2014 and we had no issues with it.

Other than quite large sums of money in servicing all had been going well, until 3 weeks ago I started getting a shuddering when pulling away and on upshifts, very much like overly slipping the clutch on a manual. Aha! I thought to myself, here is where buying a new car and being under warranty will come into it's own, I rang the dealer and explained the problem, "Can I bring the car in now?" "Oh, no, sorry, 3 weeks..." "what? So I will be without a car for 3 weeks?" "Yes, shall I book you in" "umm, ok?".
I rang around other Hyundai dealers and the waits were even longer, 7 weeks for one.

Now this may just be an issue with Hyundai, but what is the point of owning a new car and paying the premuim to do so, if you are totally without a car for 3+ weeks?

It goes in tomorrow, finally, but I have lost all confidence in the car (13k miles and the clutch(es) have already gone!?) and in the fact that I have a manufacturer warranty which doesn't seem to mean anything, other than it might get fixed for free. If it was an older car I could have already been seen and fixed by an array of available local garages.

My gut instinct is to sell up in the new year once the service and MOT are done and buy something older, with less mechanical complexity, and put aside the cash difference into a savings account for any reliabliity issues, but sometimes it is better the devil you know...

Anyway, just needed that off my chest, rant over, never buying a new car again!

 

[Southy_]

It doesn't, and that is ok, my bigger problem is just the massive wait time but even that is actually more of a me problem than a car or dealer problem.

Reality didn't meet my expectation that things would be better with a new car, it's the first time a new vehicle I have owned has had a mechanical problem, I had assumed things would be easier/smoother/better with a new car, when in reality you get the same **** as owning any car dealing with a garage, with the downside that warranty work can only be carried out at a main dealer and the upside that it should be fixed for free.

 

[Southy_]

You have unrealistic expectations if you think a car, irrespective of age, will have 0 mechanical issues.

I didn't expect it to have no mechanical issues, as in my reply above, my expectations for how that would be handled were just way off reality.

 

[Southy_]

At the end of the day the warranty is simply there to get your issue resolved at no cost to you if it turns out to be a manufacturing issue. You can't expect them to start bumping people down a list because yours is warranty work and theirs isn't so there's always a chance there's going to be a wait.

I get where you're coming from but it's from unrealistic expectations rather than any actual issue.

Absolutlely, and now my expectations are down where they should be!

 

[Southy_]

Wait times to be booked in of more than a week is pretty much standard these days. Local Jag dealer is usually a 2 week wait. My preferred "garage" for working on my old cars has a typical 4 week wait.

I would expect if you required a courtesy car, the wait would be even longer.

As for the issue, you can't really reject the car without knowing what is the cause and if it's under warranty, it will be repaired. Other than the mild inconvenience, I wouldn't sweat it too much.

Yeah, I guess it's just that the last time I had any car in a garage for a fault was my old Golf GTI around 6 years ago, I booked into my local VW main dealer, had an appointment 3 days later and a little UP! as a courtesy car. So my expectations were way too high, and my assumptions about new car ownership have shifted quite a lot.

 

[Southy_]

It’s mega frustrating being without a car, more so when it’s under warranty. It lures you into the false sense of security that nothing can go wrong, almost.


As others have said, it is an unreasonable expectation, but nevertheless it’s infuriating when you’ve got a car with a significant sum tied up in it, with no alternative mode of transport.


We heavily rely on cars, and so when you don’t have one it can impact many parts of your life.



Hope you manage to sort ASAP OP

This exactly, that sense of "it's fine because it's new and under warranty" has been well and truely shattered for me now!

 

[Southy_]

It's not a new car though is it? It's a 2019 car. Whilst I don't agree the way they are handling this is good, this doesn't seem to be a new car problem and could easily happen when any used car.

Can they get you booked in any sooner if you don't ask for a loan car, often it's the availability of a loan car that causes the longer waits.

This is the attitude I realise I should have had, my problem was I had hyped up the expection in my own head (with nothing to base it on tbf) that things would be better in some way in dealing with the mechanical issues that would eventually appear, that I would have something extra for the amount of money I had put into buying a new car.

3 weeks was the soonest, that was without a loan car. It goes in tomorrow so hopefully most of my pain is done with.

 

[Southy_]

Maybe I would have asked that given the nature of the problem it could be causing consequential damage and needed to be seen faster , as much for their benefit and minimising potential repair cost.

Driving it in the interim could have been risky , and sounds like they didn't superficially assess it.

I took it upon myself to not drive it, I will be driving the ~3miles to the dealer, but yes, I maybe should have pushed that a bit harder.

 

[Southy_]

Need to manage expectations here - It's highly unlikely to phone a dealer and get a slot within a couple of days these days. Usually if you want a courtesy car then the wait is longer, and you might need to pay extra for it.

My Dad's 640d Convertible was recalled by BMW for a fault - He waited 8 weeks for a slot and then they had the car for over 4 weeks, no car supplied during this time. This car was £70k RRP in 2014.

Yeah, funnily enough they don't mention that when you buy a new car!

 

[Southy_]

You'd hope that's where the pain stops, but this is to have the car in just to see if they can replicate the issue and come up with a repair plan. Hyundai website warranty terms states a clutch plate is only covered for the first 2 years of the warranty or 60k miles, not sure if that's the same for DCT as it doesn't go into further details.

I have worried about this, my research has shown that for DCT the clutch should be covered as it is considered an integrated part of the gearbox, but I will find out!

 

[Southy_]

So, update on the car, the shuddering I was feeling was actually misfiring. 3/4 spark plugs are done, being a consumable part they are not covered under warranty so I would be on the hook for £150 diagnostic charge and the work, lovely.

Car is due it's 4 year service in a month, where the plugs would be replaced anyway, so just having that service done a bit early, they can squeeze me in on Monday or Tuesday and they are not charging me the £150 extra.

I am a bit concerned that 13k miles is very low mileage for spark plugs to go and wanted to know if there was potentially something wrong that would maybe cause them to break again, but the service manager just kept repeating over and over that they needed to be replaced after 4 years and this is normal, so yeah, not great customer service, but I will have my car back sooner than if it had been some massive warranty repair/gearbox replacement.