… mine is a second hand car … i think if this is a known problem with this model, they should honour the warranty regardless of when it expired. Good luck
In law, a factory warranty is known as a voluntary warranty and is best considered a commercial arrangement between the manufacturer, dealer and buyer. This warranty has a defined end date based on kms and/or time and is transferable to the next purchaser.. It is not the be all and end all “warranties“.
When buying any product from a business within Australia, one is also protected by Australia Consumer Law which provides a “statutory warranty”. In law, this statutory warranty doesn’t have an end date specified and its “duration” is what an average consumer would expect is reasonable given the price paid for a product. The seller is responsible for statutory warranty obligations under law. It must also be noted that the product can be “used” and the only requirement is that it is sold by a business. Thus a Ford dealer can sell a used Holden and would be on the hook for correcting any faults and defects with the product they sold (within the confines of what an average consumer would expect given the price paid).
A statutory warranty may not always be honoured and companies often misrepresent your rights under law which may mean you have to defend your rights in court/tribunal.
As a side, ACL has teeth as Mazda recently found out. Mazda telling porkies about ACL rights to 9 people cost then $11M in fines
Buying private, though you may get to use a remaining factory warranty, if it’s still valid from a km or time perspective, you have no statutory warranty to fall back on.
As is, it’s a bit shitty for Holden to not fix such defects by claiming factory warranty has expired. This is especially shitty given that commodores within recent years before factory closure came with varying factory warranties ranging between 3, 5 and 7 years. It would be hard pressed for the manufacturer & seller to justify that because one who person bought a vehicle on day “x” gets a 3 year factory warranty while another person who bought his car the following week gets a 7 year factory warranty… Its odd for one buyer to pay for repairs while the other gets a free warranty repair… This is especially odd given the prices paid are often in the same ball park in both cases... It’s further highlighted as inconsistent from a statutory warranty perspective as both should have the same length of protection under law given the prices paid are similar. In that context you can’t shorten the longer factory (cause contract) but a rising tide lifts all boats
Holden call that rising tide, along with acl statutory warrant “good will“
In this particular case, I’d be ringing HCC and highlighting the injustice of not repairing this defect given that it existed (and was highlighted to the dealer?) before the factory warranty expired. I’d basically want this issue resolved under my statutory warranty rights and I’d want the diagnostic fee and any out of pocket costs associated with the repair to be refunded.
Lots of discussion of ACL within the “Sudden loss of power steering when DRIVING” thread (a sticky thread on VF forum).