Maintaining a service plan or servicing a maintenance plan?

[gdigitel]

After much deliberation and research I finally made up my mind and purchased a 2007 Triton 2.5 4x4. The vehicle is in an excellent condition all round and it should be cause it only has 17000km on the clock. I bought it from a guy who buys and sells vehicles in the Durbanville area. I was informed that he purchased the vehicle from a liquidation auction and that everything was still perfect on the vehicle. He even went as far as saying that the vehicle had a full maintenance plan for 3 yrs or 60000km. I knew that 2007 Triton’s usually come out with a service plan so I asked him if he was sure that it was a maintenance plan and not a service plan. He insisted that he had checked the vehicles servicing details with Mitsubishi in Tygervalley and that they showed him on the system that it had a maintenance plan. This made my purchasing decision a little easier as it would give me a year and a bits worth of trouble free ownership. Well apparently not!
As the vehicle had not done 10000km since its last service, which was a year ago, we booked it for a service at Mitsubishi Paarden Island on Friday just to ensure that the Maintenance Plan and warranty remain intact(see we even know about the fine print). When I booked it in on Friday, the lady the desk seemed a little concerned as she had not seen any sign of the vehicle having a maintenance plan. I said that was impossible and that the seller ensured me that it did have a MP. After checking on the old registration number she seemed happy and let the driver drop me off at work.

At about 11h30 i received a call from the service lady informing me that my brake disks had to be skimmed and that the brake pads had to be replaced. My first thought was, brakes already... followed by thank goodness for the maintenance plan, but then the BUT came into the story. She is sorry to inform me but my vehicle does not have a maintenance plan. At this stage I went pale and my skin started to tingle and I told her that I would contact the seller. The seller spoke to the people at mistu tygervalley who then spoke to the people at mistu Paarden Island which lead to me receiving an sms stating that my vehicle has a full maintenance plan with DCSA which expires on 60000km or 15/10/2010. Great I can rest easy again – or NOT.

I picked up my clean, serviced car at about 16h00 on Friday – didn’t have to sign anything just pick up and go – awesome. Then at about 16H57 i get a call from the service manager at mitsu Paarden Island, he starts off by saying that he has bad news, this in turn brings on another bout of pale tingling skin. Now my car does not have a maintenance plan again. Apparently the DCSA was an old system and apparently 20 tritons were mistakenly given maintenance plans on this system and he called it something like a finger print error. He then also informed me that I still had to pay R2000 and something for the work done on my vehicle. After informing him that I was not a happy camper and reassuring him that this really left a bad taste in my mouth he gave me a discount on the amount I had to pay. Now I owe them R1750. No matter how much I spoke and explained it went in the one ear and out the other. The service manager couldn’t give a dam about me and failed to see that a failure in their system was causing me to lose my maintenance plan and still have to pay up for a job they did which I was under the impression was covered by my maintenance plan.

What must I do now? What action must I take. Any advice will be appreciated.
To those other 19 Tritons out there with maintenance plans – sorry to break this to you all.
All names have been removed on purpose, if this issue gets nasty, ill gladly add the relevant names.

[Fabfender]

I would contact DCSA and insist that they honour the maintenance plan, their fault not yours.

[Kerneels]

I would contact DCSA and insist that they honour the maintenance plan, their fault not yours.

I agree. In my business I have a simple phylosophy, if my staff make a mistake we give the benefit to our client.

[Elders]

Do you still have that SMS confirming that you have a maintenance plan?

LEGAL BINDING DOCUMENT !!

A friend is a forensic auditor for Vodacom - his job is to go through peoples SMS history for court cases - so these ARE used in court.

Without that you would have considered "other options" than just letting them continue with the work .....

Now you cant actually get a liar, uh sorry lawyer ..., for R1750 - but the principle of the matter would IRK me !!

[Fabfender]

You would also have recourse to the Motor Industries Ombud. Free legal option!