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warranty woes

Posted: Sun May 13, 2012 7:08 pm
by horobags
bought my new vespa gts from a branch of the GB-motor group(KJM) who also are the Sym importer for the UK, at the end of feb, so around 3 months. A couple of weeks ago I was reading a post on the GTS owners forum about a couple of guys who had bought new GTS's from the same group, and when having their 1st service at a local vespa dealer, was told their warranty wasn't activated. So one of the kind owners imformed me, and when I checked with Vespa, No not registered, still showing unsold, :o
I contacted my dealer and they said yes we will sort it, so 2 weeks later I phoned vespa, and,, No not activated, vespa also told me only the selling dealer can activate the warranty and my VIN number is registered to an Italian dealer who has also lost or given up their piaggio franchise, so how the f**k do I get it activated. Over thursday and friday I must have phoned my local branch of KJM, around eight times trying to get it sorted, and "yes its in hand", is all I can get.
One of the other GTS owners took his to get a part-ex price against a beverly 350, from a piaggio dealer, the dealer said he couldnt touch the GTS without the warranty.
Its not good is it.

Re: warranty woes

Posted: Sun May 13, 2012 7:12 pm
by visfix
A quick call to Trading Standards, methinks?

Re: warranty woes

Posted: Sun May 13, 2012 7:26 pm
by Bluebottle
Outrageous

As the warranty was part of the sale contract you should have some legal leverage I should think. Like Visfix said- Trading Standards should show an interest

I have got some sympathy for the garage as they sound caught in the middle

I think I would agree a date that it will be sorted by and explain that after that it gets handed to T.S.

Re: warranty woes

Posted: Sun May 13, 2012 8:51 pm
by bornagainbiker
Under the sale of goods act in the UK, the seller of the new item is responsible for the 1st years warranty (repair or replacement), regardless of a manufacturer warranty.

Re: warranty woes

Posted: Sun May 13, 2012 9:11 pm
by barryG
I had this with a PX I bought in 2003, I tried to buy the extended warranty from Piaggio and they told me my scoot had no warranty! The dealer told me my scoot and all those he sold were imported from a dealer in Spain and my dealer would honour the warranty themselves. True to word, I had an issue which they paid a local dealer to sort out.

Piaggio were hopeless and not interested in my case.

Re: warranty woes

Posted: Sun May 13, 2012 9:11 pm
by R1K SU
I was looking at getting a Z1000 a cpl of years ago and KJM were offering lots of 2 year old models NEW but from dutch imports, wonder if they buy bankrupt stock from dealers who have gone bust, and its difficult to get all the paper work ?

Re: warranty woes

Posted: Sun May 13, 2012 10:02 pm
by horobags
I forgot to mention, and to give them their due, a small cover was damaged when new, which I told them about, and they replaced it, it only took 8 weeks to turn up, and a few phone calls chasing it up, ,good job it wasn't mechanical!!!!

Re: warranty woes

Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 8:44 am
by SpikeOne
bornagainbiker wrote:Under the sale of goods act in the UK, the seller of the new item is responsible for the 1st years warranty (repair or replacement), regardless of a manufacturer warranty.
You're right. The seller is responsible. I think, from memory, (not that that is very good these days), that the law says that the product should be "fit for the purpose for which it was intended", and that this is actually applies for 3 years, not 1. However, it's difficult to use, and you need to jump through lots of hoops to get anything out of it, because it's up to the buyer to prove that there is a fault. Not being happy with it in some sort of ethereal way isn't good enough.

Re: warranty woes

Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 8:59 am
by Data
Horobags, as long as KJM are sorting it then you should be fine. As some are saying, irrespective of Vespa's own warranty KJM have to honour the warranty that would normally be supplied with the bike, ie: 2years. That's what the bike is sold with in the EU and that's what they have to honour because you bought it on that basis. But as Spike is saying, you've also got the protection of the Sale of Goods Act which in the EU gives up to 6 years of protection against unreasonable failures on the bike. I recently had cause to get involved with the SOG's act when a friends lcd £850 TV, just 18 months old went up the swanny. It had no extended warranty and the manufacture and the selling dealer said tough! After some heavy denial of liability by the manufacturer and dealer the SOG got it sorted amazingly easily and a full refund was given. If a TV fails after 18 months it's considered self evident that there was a fault 'built in' to the set. They offered a new TV set first but it kind of puts you off when a product goes bad after such a short time.

Re: warranty woes

Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 9:54 am
by bornagainbiker
There are lots of info on the SOG's Act but here is a brief explanation. Lets hope KJM and Piaggio sort this out.

http://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/ ... ur-rights/