When you buy a new car, you want to do everything you can to take care of it. Part of that means buying insurance to cover any accidents or other issues.

Unfortunately, the customer in this story thought that a warranty covered those types of things, so he never purchased insurance.

After doing extensive damage to his vehicle, he brought it to the dealership demanding that they fix it under warranty, but that didn’t work out very well for him.

Customer learns the hard way between warranty and insurance

This story happened to my brother.

So, one day this guy brings his family sized (premium) sedan purchased only a few months back into the dealership complaining that the car “drives funny” and wants it repaired under warranty.

The service team is engaged and they take the vehicle for a drive to get an idea of what’s happening, and find anything that over 50kph (approx. 30mph) the car becomes almost impossible to steer and keep under control.

The customer must have known something happened.

So, they bring the car back, pop it on the hoist to have a look at the underside of the vehicle.

As per my brothers words, “it looked like someone smashed the whole bottom of the car up a foot and let the crumpled mess fall back into place”.

In short, it was a mess and unsurprisingly, the steering was one of the many (badly) effected components.

Old mate (OM) is waiting on the service customer area, so my brother approached him, gives him a brief run down of the damage and asks if he’s had some sort of accident.

Well, he should have mentioned that from the beginning.

OM states, “Yeah, I visited a customer on his farm and I hit a few rocks getting to and from his property”.

Then the fun starts:

Bro: OK, well look mate this is something you’ll need to contact your insurance company about.

This is not at all how warranties work.

OM: No, I have a warranty, you need to repair my car.

Bro: I’m sorry mate, but warranty doesn’t cover accidental damage. You’ll need to call your insurance company and make a claim.

OM: No, I don’t need insurance I have a warranty. You’re obligated to repair my car.

Bro: Your warranty does not cover this type of damage. This is an insurance claim.

Then the customer drops a bombshell, as several staff have wandered over to listen in to the conversation.

Oh, he is not going to be happy about this.

OM: I don’t have insurance because I don’t need it, I have a warranty.

At this, jaws drop and my brother just looks at this guy in disbelief.

Normally the finance company requires full coverage insurance before they will fulfil the loan.

Bro: You didn’t take out insurance when you bought the car?

OM: No, like I said I don’t need it since the car comes with a warranty! Look, I’m sick of going around in circles with you. You need to fix my car!

From here, the dealer principle is called in since this bloke’s just not understanding, and he’s getting louder, angry and starting to become abusive since the dealership won’t repair the car.

I’m not sure what he thinks the police will do for him.

It gets to the point that the cops are called when they’ve had enough and tell him to leave the premises and he refuses. So OM sits down on the low fence at front of the dealership to take this up with the police since they’ll sort this out.

So, after a while the police turn up, one officer heads to my brother and the dealer principal, the other goes and talks to OM at the front of the dealership.

My brother explains to the officer the damage to the vehicle, what’s happened leading to them being called and the cop is just stunned when he’s told the guy has no insurance. The officer goes, “Right, we’ll sort this out” and heads over to his colleague.

Is this guy in denial?

So, OM is gesticulating wildly as he’s explaining to the other officer what’s going on when the 1st officer joins them. The 1st officer basically gives him the “This is how it is talk” and the guy is still waving his arms around, trying to convince the police otherwise but they’re both standing there, arms crossed, shaking their heads basically saying “Mate, you’re wrong and you’ve messed up”.

This goes on for a while and then it finally dawns on OM. My brother said you could physically see the guy deflate when he realized he’s trashed a $70k car less than 6 months old and he has to foot the bill for repairs himself.

I would be devastated as well.

OM looked simply devastated as the 1st officer heads back over to my brother and the dealer principal and says “OK, we’ve got him to understand, he’s going to leave without any further issue”.

The guy got in his car, drove off and my brother never saw him again. I don’t think he’ll be making that mistake again!

It is a funny story, but I do feel bad for the guy. I don’t see how he bought a car without knowing he needed insurance, but this could ruin his life.

Let’s see what the people in the comments say about it.

This is a simple way to put it.

Apparently this happens more than I would have thought.

It doesn’t make much sense.

Yup, they wouldn’t let him drive off like that.

It would be illegal in the US as well.

How does someone not know that they need insurance?

If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.