South African motorists cheated out of service plans: report

Part of the issue is people not pushing enough...

If I bought a vehicle from a dealership as new, and they had used it in a "ghost sale" or whatever nonsense they want to call it... I would make their lives very very difficult if they tried to stiff me out of a few months of motor plan. Motor plan kicks in on date of sale.
 
Common practice with Mercedes Benz - buy a car in the first 3 months of the year and there's a good chance that it has been pre-captured.

The only way to be certain is to go through everything with the sales manager before taking delivery.

When selling, it happened to me once, when I had to buy a Fiat in from a branch in Pretoria, and they had pre reported it without telling me. Our response, when we found out, was to provide the buyer with a free plan until 3 years after I delivered it - no big deal, but one very happy customer.
 
Ah yes, I was caught by the Hyundai folks as well. I bought the car in January and three years later went back for my final "free" service only to be told that "the insurance policy covering your free services expired in the previous December". Nice one Hyundai, I won't be back! The service cost me R3300. Emailing their head office produced no answer whatsoever.
 
This was one of the big reasons that my dad left Hyundai. With his first 2 Elantras he got 5 full years on his service plan, and then traded them in for a new one.

With the 3rd, he took it in for 5 year service, and they wouldn't cover it claiming that the plan had lapsed. Worse still, they offered him less on a trade than Renault. He's now a happy Duster owner.
 
Is there any way to check when your maintenance plan runs out?
 
Thanks for the warning. My Hyundai is due for a service in a few days time.
 
Meh. As mentioned by ToxicBunny, service/maintenance plan and warranty begin on day of purchase with a new car. If I was hoodwinked, simple legal case with costs against dealer would suffice.
 
cr@zydude said:
How are Hyundai and Renault linked? In PE they were both part of PE multifranchise, but have since separated.
Click to expand...

You have variations on multi franchise operations all over the place - particularly in the E Cape - the cars don't necessarily have to be linked either, we were selling Fiat and Jeep alongside Subaru in Durban.

ambroseg1 said:
Exactly what happened here.

http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php/798546-BMW-Fraud

Plain and simple fraud. How the hell are these dealerships getting away with this so easily??????
Click to expand...
Probably because a large percentage of owners never find out, as they don't do the mileage specified in the plan, or in the case of high mileage cars, they would run out of mileage before time, so it's never picked up.
 
...and confirmed that plan runs from date I purchased the vehicle.

There's some good BMW service for you. :)
 
What the actual f U *** is going on :wtf:

This is ridiculous
 
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