A young family is warning car enthusiasts to “stay right away” from buying a Jeep after their AU$50,000 Grand Cherokee broke down – leaving them with hefty costs after their insurer and car dealer refused to deal with the damage, NZ Herald reports.
Danny Lawrence and his wife, Catherine, bought a 2013 Grand Cherokee from an authorised Jeep distributor in 2015 despite hearing bad things about the car manufacturer.
However, the Jeep eventually broke down on the side of the road – prompting Danny to take it back to the dealership. They thought the battery had just failed but it turned out that the problem was in the fuel pump. It was supposed to be easy to replace but the failure had spat bits of metal through the fuel system, destroying the engine.
The family received a quote from the dealer amounting to $47,500, including the estimated labour needed. They were advised to apply directly to the car manufacturer for some kind of “goodwill” as the engine failure was irregular and not the owner’s fault.
“And they came back and said there’s nothing we’re going to do for you at all,” Danny said, as reported by NZ Herald.
“There was no empathy, there was no ‘we could try this or we can try that’, it was literally just run-of-the-mill for them, which really put me off.”
They also tried to apply for an insurance claim – but to no avail.
“We went to claim on insurance and they said they can’t cover it because it’s a part failure and it falls back on Jeep — it’s their responsibility to fix it,” Danny said.
