Spiny Norman

Can I get some advice on this please?

I have a 2001. I bought it from a dealer though not a Honda dealer. I understood it had a 100k warranty transferred from a previous owner. When I bought the vehice it was on 28,000 miles.

I had warranty work done, at a Honda dealer, on the car at about 3 years old and 40,000 miles. I then had more warranty work done byt he same dealer at about 4 years old and 60,000 miles. When I had the later work done my dealer told me it was under a 100K warranty but the name on the warranty was not mine. However they checked with American Honda who said the warranty was active. They did the work and gave me a number to call American Honda to transfer the warranty over to me. I called American Honda, gave the VIN number etc... and assumed it was transferred. I did try to call them back to get some kind of paper confirmation but never managed to wait long enough on hold.

I need some more warranty work so called the dealer, and they checked and said the warranty wasn't in my name and it needed transferring before they could do more work. So I called American Honda again and finally got through to someone who said they couldn't transfer the warranty to me and that I'd have to go to the dealer who sold me the car, who are now out of business.

Does anyone have any experience of warranties and can offer any advice to me?

Thanks

xmartin

If it's a Hondacare warranty, the original person who bought the extended service contract has to do the transfer to the new owner within a certain number of days after selling the car for a fee, depending on the policy. If you've had it a while, there is no way to transfer the warranty. I'm guessing that the dealers that did the work under warranty fudged the claims to get them to work.

Since the warranty was originally purchased by a prior owner, you never really owned the warranty. That prior owner should have cancelled the warranty and gotten a nice refund when he traded in the car. Since he didn't, the contract just becomes invalid. A non-Honda dealer cannot transfer an existing contract.

This is all assuming that the warranty is a Hondacare warranty. If it's got some other name on it, then all bets are off.

alexz

And that is advice from the Honda/Acura man himself. Hey Martin, long time since I've seen you, where have you been hiding?

xmartin

I'm not really hiding, just busy busy. Too many cool new cars this year. I'll try to come to the Torrance meet this week. I'm there about every 5th one or so.

alexz

Good seeing your post, I'll see you eventually at a meet/drive. Hope all is well.

Phil

Spiny Norman

I have to assume it's a Hondacare warranty because my regular dealer said they checked with American Honda and found it was under warranty. I'm more than a little disappointed with this because my dealer checked with American Honda and definitely told me it was under an American Honda 100K warranty before they went ahead and did the work.

So I think I've been mislead. Had I known this wasn't under warranty I would have had all the necessary work done at once. What steps would you advise? Thanks

xmartin

I don't think that you have many options here. It it was a Hondacare, then the warranty was not a "warranty" per say, but actually a "service contract" sold to the individual who originally purchased the contract only. The only way to transfer that contract is for the original contract holder to request the transfer and pay a fee. Generally, even if the car passes to a Honda dealer on trade, the contract is nullified, and the contract holder should request a refund for the remaining time on the contract (through a Honda dealer).

So, the car never had a longer warranty, the original owner held a contract for service on that car beyond the original 3 year or 36k warranty within certain contractual limits. This is not legal advice, as I'm not a lawyer, but if the non-Honda dealer sold you the car and committed in writing that you were getting a longer warranty, then you may have some recourse against that dealer. If it's not in writing, then you're likely out of luck.

xmartin

Also, if the Honda dealer checked with Honda and did some work "under warranty" count yourself lucky that they didn't check it out properly. If they did, they would have seen that your name was not on the contract, and denied the work. You got some repairs for free that technically you were not eligible to receive.

Spiny Norman

thanks xmartin. The trouble is the dealer, deliberately or not, managed to get me to delay some work from when my car was under the manufacturers warranty by telling me it still had 100k miles powertrain cover. So I didn't get all the work done (they said they couldn't trace it), and now the noise is louder they say it's not covered.