Warranty direct claims - best and worst reliability

[Deleted member 37751]

I have 3 cars, the SL, and Astra and a Fiesta in the house, the SL is covered by a warranty, the other two are not. Even if I did have the other two covered, the types of faults they have experienced would not make it worth claiming once excess is paid. The Fiesta has had issues with both seats and the Astra, a catalogue of engine issues requiring EGR, thermostat and coil rail to be replaced, along with wiring failures making it no more reliable than the merc. The SL has proved expensive to keep running but the number of issues is no more than the Astra ( which is younger ).

So far as cars that are covered, I suspect most if not all will have reasonable service regimes as WD won't pay out unless properly maintained.

I've just had to replace a diesel pump on a 1.7 Di Vauxhall Combo and I thought, out of interest, I'd ring the main dealer first.


The price they quoted me? £1200 including VAT sir...

 

[mirras]

A wee bit off topic but the Astra has been a nightmare... lots of visits to the dealer, "cheap fuel sir" "replace this sensor sir" "replace that sensor sir"....

I got fed up and tackled the car myself. Thermostat 1st, £400 from dealer, oem £80 off ebay and 20 mins to fit. EGR £350 fitted from dealer, £90 oem from ebay... and finally coil rail... £150 from dealer, £120 from eurocarparts, then another call to dealer and magically discounted to £125, 10 mins to fit. Car runs like a dream now. Weak area is thick hard wiring to doors, windows fail.

 

[jepho]

Warranty Direct aren't going to be replacing things like leather interiors, they deal with a standard range of component failures.
Their evidence is simple, the better cars have fewer claims.

If your computerised, heated seat fails, it wont matter too much what it is covered with. The component (the seat) has to be replaced and Mercs are more likely to have leather on their seats rather than cloth.

There 'evidence' is not simple but simplistic. People who own a £200 shed are not going to be protecting their investment with Warranty Direct. People who have lashed out 20k on a used Merc, may well be tempted to take out a third party warranty. This skews the data to make it look as if more there are more Mercs than any other car going wrong, more of the time and more expensively.

It wont take much research to see that has to be nonsense. The Mercs that are being covered by third party warranties have, by definition, outgrown their natural warranty period and could be considered to be nearing the end of their useful life. If Mercs are the sort of crap which is implied by the Warranty Direct data manipulation exercise, Mercs would not sell in the market at all. Their reputation would have preceded them and BMW could make a killing on that basis.

Another point about very public complaints is that you still have no idea how many cars were sold and how many owners were happy enough so that they did not need to make a complaint. Permit me to refer you to the JD Power ratings: You will note that Mercedes Benz is awarded 4/5 points for overall dependability, 4/5 points for powertrain dependability, 5/5 points for body and interior dependability and 3/5 points for feature and accessory dependability. FWIW 3/5 equates to about average, 4/5 equates to better than most and 5/5 equates to among the best

the total score out of 20 = 16 which does not fit with one Mercedes Benz as the least reliable car. Some one is not telling the truth or they are not dealing with facts in an honest scientific way. That someone is likely to be the business that makes money out of scaring people into buying a warrant from them. JD power is a company that relies on its ability to carry out independent benchmarking and I would rather accept their findings than those of a company whose primary interest is to get at your wallet,

 

[jepho]

Warranty Direct aren't going to be replacing things like leather interiors, they deal with a standard range of component failures.
Their evidence is simple, the better cars have fewer claims.

If your computerised, heated seat fails, it wont matter too much what it is covered with. The component (the seat) has to be replaced and Mercs are more likely to have leather on their seats rather than cloth.

There 'evidence' is not simple but simplistic. People who own a £200 shed are not going to be protecting their investment with Warranty Direct. People who have lashed out 20k on a used Merc, may well be tempted to take out a third party warranty. This skews the data to make it look as if more there are more Mercs than any other car going wrong, more of the time and more expensively.

It wont take much research to see that has to be nonsense. The Mercs that are being covered by third party warranties have, by definition, outgrown their natural warranty period and could be considered to be nearing the end of their useful life. If Mercs are the sort of crap which is implied by the Warranty Direct data manipulation exercise, Mercs would not sell in the market at all. Their reputation would have preceded them and BMW could make a killing on that basis.

Another point about very public complaints is that you still have no idea how many cars were sold and how many owners were happy enough so that they did not need to make a complaint. Permit me to refer you to the JD Power ratings: You will note that Mercedes Benz is awarded 4/5 points for overall dependability, 4/5 points for powertrain dependability, 5/5 points for body and interior dependability and 3/5 points for feature and accessory dependability. FWIW 3/5 equates to about average, 4/5 equates to better than most and 5/5 equates to among the best

The total score out of 20 = 16 which does not fit with Mercedes Benz being branded as the least reliable car. It is needless sophistry for the sensationalisation of lacklustre research data. Some organisation is not telling the truth or they are deliberately not dealing with facts in an honest and scientifically rigorous manner, ergo, their findings are worthless to John and Jane Doe. Their business makes money by scaring people into buying a warranty from them. JD power is a company that relies on its ability to carry out independent benchmarking and I would rather accept their findings than those of a company whose primary interest is to get at your wallet,

 

[finisterre]

My mum wanted a reliable car. We looked through the WD list. We only considered things in the top ten and she bought an H-RV. It has been fine. If you compare Which? reliability reports with WD they are not much different.

Anyway there are too many Bells and Whistles on cars. I blame company drivers who run them for a few manufacturer warranted years. Passing the difficulties down the line to people that probably prefer reliability above fancy features.

If the reliability list does anything I hope it undercuts second hand values on 'totally loaded' type cars, encouraging fleet managers to choose (greener) vehicles that are worth adding to the national fleet.

 

[finisterre]

If Mercs are the sort of crap which is implied by the Warranty Direct data manipulation exercise, Mercs would not sell in the market at all. Their reputation would have preceded them and BMW could make a killing on that basis.

Normal people don't buy a new CL or SL, they buy a new ford focus.

It is the brand image that keeps Mercedes afloat, company big cheeses wanting to look successful in their business choose the larger ones, the smaller ones are okayish on the reliability index. And of course the big ones help make the standard ones look that bit more desirable.

Mercedes are on the cusp of disaster if they continue to make expensive and unreliable executive motors.

 

[jepho]

Normal people don't buy a new CL or SL, they buy a new ford focus.

It is the brand image that keeps Mercedes afloat, company big cheeses wanting to look successful in their business choose the larger ones, the smaller ones are okayish on the reliability index. And of course the big ones help make the standard ones look that bit more desirable.

Mercedes are on the cusp of disaster if they continue to make expensive and unreliable executive motors.

My question is why are the Warranty Direct numbers not reflected in the JD Power numbers? They cannot both be correct.

 

[finisterre]

First the table of claims is relative, the cars at the bottom might still be pretty damn reliable, as proved by the JDP survey.

Or possibly - Do you only cough up for a warranty if you had suspicions about your cars reliability?

 

[jepho]

First the table of claims is relative, the cars at the bottom might still be pretty damn reliable, as proved by the JDP survey.

Or possibly - Do you only cough up for a warranty if you had suspicions about your cars reliability?

Exactly what I have been trying to get to. I would think that if one had confidence in the dealer and their willingness to stand by what they said at the time of the sale, then I suspect that I would not buy a warranty. It already implies that you think you bought a duck.

 

[Mercy1]

I suppose I have contributed to MB's demise in this survey. I took out a WD warranty for the fourth and fifth year of my ML's life because I balked at the possibility of sky high bills if things went wrong. Two failures - not big, but costly in the MB repair shop - ensured that my premium was money well spent.
Sorry all...two more stats for those survey figures...!!
But two observations - 1) I agree that it is inevitable that people with premium cars are more likely to take out these warranties so the figures will be skewed against them in such surveys, and 2) I cannot agree that the WD warranty is junk - mine covered more than MBs and cost half as much, and there were no quibbles on the claims.

 

[Sp!ke]

Aside from the argument that a cheap simple car will have less points of failure and less claims which are cheaper to fix. (which I think we all agree on)

What strikes me is that there are other cars just as complicated as the Mercedes models listed and they do not show up on this list. What about the BMW S class equivalent, the 7 series.. is this a better option? Or how about an XKR being a safer bet than an SL?

4 out of 10 of the most unreliable cars according to their data happen to be MB's - no BMW, No Jaguar no Lexus, no Audi... How can one explain away this?

 

[nick mercedes]

Interesting stats here - I appreciate that the more complicated the car the more it will cost to run but... why are mercedes dominating the worst section as opposed to BMW or say... Jaguar?

Because Mercedes are badly built from substandard materials.

Which is why you see rusty Mercedes and no rusty Fiats anymore.

Mercedes would feature even further up the usless car index had they not hushed up the problems they had with injectors on new diesels last year...

 

[jepho]

How can one explain away this?

Vested interest in warranty sales. The chances are that a higher proportion of Mercedes owners will be concerned to protect their investment... more than than any other owner group. More Merc owners means that there are more Mercs and that means that one of them will fail in some manner.

The same is true of hard disks. Adding hard disks to your computer spreads the risk of hard drive failure over say... 4 hard disks. It does not stop the original disk from failing. It does (empirically) increase the risk of failure from 1 to 4 because the number of hard drives has now increased.

 

[Sp!ke]

Jepho - your argument doesnt stand as the figures are based on failures per 100 cars.

Besides there are far more Fords or Vauxhalls on the road anyway.

The point I'm getting at is that despite being a die hard fan of the marque, I think its becoming clear that MB still need to pull their socks up as even todays cars rolling off the production lines are not up to standard.

 

[NOMONEYBUTAMERC]

I would tend to agree that the buyer of a used "bland -brand" car would be far less likely to purchase a warranty , than the buyer of a 3-5 year old Mercedes . ( also , generally speaking ) more likely to either self-maintain his own vehicle. Hate to say it on this forum, but your average high value MB owner is perhaps less inclined to want, or need to carry out repairs/servicing. . Also possible of course that history is repeating itself, and MB quality is again not what it should be. To be honest , if I were more affluent , I might perhaps be inclined to send my old SL to the local MB dealer , on the basis that I may use the time to do other things.

 

[LTD]

Is it not fair to point out that there is a clear difference in purchase price of the cheapest-to-fix cars and those that are most expensive-to-fix.

It would be interesting to see the repair costs expressed as a percentage of the new purchase cost.

 

[mirras]

I'd like to see how the cost of extended warranties across all manufacturers compare, I know Land Rover were very competitive on price with WD yet MB were double for lower cover, hence, I'm in second year with WD.

It is fair to say there are as complex cars as the big MBs that come from BMW, Audi etc that don't appear high on the list, I agree with Nick that the materials and processes are not up to spec for a range of years but there must be other factors too. I'd like to see the detail including the models warranted, as we all know there are big differences between a base model and top spec '600' model. The R230 at the top of the list has massively expensive ABC issues. Nick, I think alluded to something earlier, "highest common denominator" repairs. I had to have a full hydropnumatic strut replaced, the strut alone was around £1k for the part, just because of a worn bush. I suspect a repair kit would cost no more than £50. Clearly MB designers not thinking it through.

 

[mirras]

Nick, I think alluded to something

sorry, just reread and it was lxi...

 

[Mercy1]

4 out of 10 of the most unreliable cars according to their data happen to be MB's - no BMW, No Jaguar no Lexus, no Audi... How can one explain away this?

Two more factors to the mix - is it possible that BMW, Audi and Lexus owners tend to be younger go-ahead types (call them what you will!) who trade in their cars for new ones within the first three years - hence no need for extended warranties and no bad statistics for these makers? (The next buyer of these cars pays much less for them so perhaps they don't feel inclined to warranty them).
On the other hand, Mercedes Benz have such a reputation for longevity that they are almost an investment in themselves and people really aspire to own and treasure them. The downside is that they tend to be expensive in the workshop - so there is a greater incentive for people to warranty them.
Personally, I feel much more comfortable about laying out £600 up front for a top warranty, knowing that will be the limit of any repair bill I get. But I know others take a different view.
Just a couple of thoughts, but in my experience, for example, I owned five new BMs and never kept one more than three years. I bought an ML and from day one vowed I would never keep it without warranty back-up (which I bought in the fourth and fifth years with two sizeable claims). If I keep my present car past three years, I will again go to WD and if I have to make claims then MB gets dissed again!

 

[Mr E]

Just to copy a comment I made yesterday on the other thread...

"I don't know what the data set is, but it being based on number of incidents and repair costs I would hazard a guess that it's related to the costs of the warranty and how eager they are to do the business.

You first have to define reliability, and for me cost doesn't come into it. A single, expensive failure does not signal an unreliable car, but a number of small failures would. I want to know that the car will start, stop and get me to my destination safely - that's what I would call reliable.

IIRC from my 6 Sigma days, reliability is the assurance that components, equipment and systems function without failure for desired periods during their whole design life. Pushing cost to repair into the equation is wrong, and distorts the underlying facts."

The cost of repair has absolutely nothing to do with reliability, so WD are not being quite as straightforward as they could be (This is the definition from their website - "The UK Reliability index takes into account all factors of a repair, the cost of the parts and the frequency of failures").

They are quite disingenuous in what they say:

It's really quite simple. The higher the Reliability Index score, the worse the car is - the lower the score, the better.

As a guideline, the average RI number on the 250 models we compare is 100.The Reliability Index figure is calculated as a combination of:

the number of times a car fails,
the cost of repairing it,
the average amount of time it spends off the road due to repairs
the average age and mileage of the vehicles we have on our books.


Reliability is the first item - WD then muddy the waters by adding in cost, time, age and mileage variables. So complex cars come bottom of the list? That's hardly a huge surprise.

Other cars include:

BMW 7 Series - Poor, 232
Jag XJ - Poor, 201

So are these 50% more reliable than a CL or SL? You can't say. But comparing the SL to the Jag, the main difference is the cost of repair, not time off the road (although the average SL was also 20% older).

So does the increased cost of repair make the SL more unreliable?

BTW, I'm not defending one marque against the other, rather I'm questioning a disingenuous index (with no published method) that is labelled as "reliability".