After you pick up the vehicle the service writer will have no interest in the claim, they only receive $2 or $3 on a small repair like this and it seems that you fled the country as far as they would view it.
It still seems unusual that the warranty company will not approve of the repair only because you did not have it repaired in November.
So here is what’s going on since Monday.
-I called Warranty and asked why they are not covering other two wheel bearings. They said they were not made aware of those on Friday. They asked me to let Acura talk to them.
-Called Acura. They said that Warranty people are lying. Both service writer and his supervisor talked to them and explained on Friday. Anyhow they agreed to call back.
-Warranty then called me back and took a statement. I was not given any information or details about the process.
-Then they called and asked for last 12months of regular maintenance. Asked them to get it from Acura as that was the only place I take my car. They refused and told me to talk to them.
-requested Acura to fax them the records.
-called warranty and first they said they did not receive any fax but then found.
Tuesday:
Acura calls and informed that they contacted warranty as there was no contact from them and were told that an inspector will visit and then case can move forward. Acura was frustrated as their courtesy car has been out for quite sometime. (I am not using that car but in case I need it for emergencies I wanted to keep it. )
Wednesday:
I called Warranty to get an update and was told that inspector has till Friday to evaluate the case. I asked but was not given the name of the adjuster dealing with my claim.
Acura called and Is frustrated.
Thursday:
Acura called and informed me that inspector will not visit until Acura agrees to open the panels in his presence while he will video record this. It will take a couple of hours and Warranty is not going to pay for this work. Customer ( That is me) would be responsible and the reason is that noisy wheel bearings are not the reason to change them. They were looking for some measurements. She said that this the worst warranty case ever. That even inspector was surprised that warranty had asked for this ridiculous request.
I told her that I am not paying for this and she should talk to Warranty and she did and then told me that Warranty is not willing to replace wheel bearings just because they are noisy.
I don’t have more time to waste on this and asked Acura to proceed with required services at my expense.
Wow, sorry you had to learn this. But your story could save someone else from this kind of treatment.
You might not be able to but it would be worth while to see if you can cancel the rest of this worthless warranty.
I would talk to the higher up at acura, fill them in on everything and start ranting about if you are going to sell me this worthless warranty I will tell everybody I know that I feel you are complicit in this scam, and will tell everyone I know you are refusing to help me.
It’s an aftermarket warranty
I believe the problem is not with Acura, but with those jokers at “CarGuard” . . .
It’s not clear that Acura had any role in this customer buying this warranty.
Sounds like it might be a case for small claims to reimburse for the bearings. Breach of contract. Keep the old bearings. If nothing else it gets their attention and they have to show up or they lose.
I generally replace wheel bearings in pairs, but if you have less then 100k on them, I would just replace the bad one. Most wheel bearings are good for 200-300k miles so at less than 100k, this would be a premature failure.
$1000+ to replace one wheel bearing is way out of line. The bearing is about $100 and it shouldn’t take more than 4 hours to replace, so about $500. $1000 for both front bearings makes sense.
BTW, you voided your warranty the second you bought it. They will always find an excuse.
Edit: if the bearing failed prematurely, Acura may give you a deep discount for the replacement for “good will” even though they are not required to do so. You can always ask. Go to the customer service representative listed in your owners manual, they are the one’s that can authorize this.
why would they do that . . . ?
op bought an aftermarket extended warranty
Acura doesn’t really owe him anything
Now as for the price of the job, op should shop around. An independent shop will probably use aftermarket parts, which will cost a little bit less, and their labor rate will also be lower.
Because sometimes they do. Doesn’t hurt to ask.
Please don’t take this the wrong way . . .
But I don’t at all follow your logic
op’s problem is with the worthless CarGuard extended warranty guys, not Acura
Frankly, if I were the service manager at the Acura dealership that op visited, my words to op would be something along these lines . . .
“Sir, you chose to buy an aftermarket extended warranty, versus one of ours. And now that has proven to be troublesome for you. After they denied your claim, why should we help you, considering you didn’t want OUR warranty in the first place . . . ?!”
I searched for information on Car Guard and got this…
http://carguardproducts.com/
Their site makes this sound like strictly a maintenance agreement and not really a repair warranty. Looking at it I can’t see anything that would cover wheel bearing replacement.
Also, I see nothing that implies repairs will be covered and nothing that makes the product seem misleading or worthless to anybody purchasing this product or has received one through transfer.
For all I know, looking at this, one gets what one pays for, which is some basic car maintenance.
What am I missing? Is this the “warranty” in question or not? If this IS it then it was never intended to cover bearing replacements and in a brief glance I don’t even see that implied.
CSA
Last week I read some of the complaints and responses from Cargaurd, they do their best to deny warranty coverage. I have been performing extended warranty repairs for 30 years and I have never seen claims denied for unrelated reasons the way they do.
One case was a Toyota truck with a transmission failure, CG reviewed the customers maintenance records and denied the claim because the owner went 800 miles over on an oil change. Their reasoning was that the transmission was to be inspected (for leaks) during the 30 K service and and the owner went 800 miles over before the service was performed. That had nothing to do with the transmission failure.
Another was a transmission complaint on a Camry, CG found that they had complained about a transmission problem a year earlier, intermittent torque converter shudder and the dealer found nothing wrong at the time but CG denied the claim because the owner continued to use the vehicle after complaining about the transmission. It shouldn’t matter if the transmission needed to be replaced last year or this year, they just don’t want to pay their claims.
There is another company of similar name, car guard admin.
Car is at 70 K miles and Warranty was bought just before expiration of factory Warranty at 48-49K till 149K or 5 years.
I was sold this Car Guard Warranty by another company that goes by the name of Ultimate Auto Protection. It is supposed to be a Warranty but in reality they were just being a pain. If bearings were not covered per contract then it was going to be easy for CG to deny the claim but instead they kept on delaying and played with our patience till they got a deadlock.
Acura tells me that that bearings needs to be changed and CG told acura that noise is not the reason to change the bearings. They were asking Acura to put more effort to find out exactly how bad these were … and Acura was not willing especially when CG were not going to pay for these efforts. (Analogy: Doctor diagnosing a patient and deciding the plan of action while insurance telling the doctor to get more tests at patient’s or doctor’s own expenses before starting the treatment otherwise treatment will not be covered)
Who knows If I had paid for this “endeavor” and whatever measurements Acura found might or might not going to be “enough” from CG standpoint. It was a trap!
There was another angle in this fiasco that I did not mention before that when I complained to CarGuard regarding their slow processing of the claim and that they were not giving me or Acura any update … they told me to talk to the seller of their Warranty. I did and it was useless.
Now as far as buying Warranty from Acura is concerned. I was given this opportunity only at the time of buying the vehicle. I did not know if I had any other option to choose from while I already had spent quite alot of money … In retrospect I should have bought it but I guess Acura( pr Any car maker) should give another opportunity to buy their warranty.
PS: I don’t have blind faith in Acura either. It is a possibility that CG is right and Acura should have put more efforts before deciding that bearings really needs to be changed. I don’t know much about cars… I am just putting my trust on some people/company. (just like patients do on their doctors)
Acura is covering one wheel bearing out of three for customer satisfaction which I am grateful of as warranty was asking too much from them and was delaying intentionally or unintentionally.
I thank you all for giving your opinion on this matter. It really helped.
No, with a legitimate warranty the wheel bearings could be replaced at any point during the warranty period. I have diagnosed bearing noise on vehicles, ordered the parts and installed them 2 weeks later when the customer returned. CG is playing games to keep the money in their coffers.
While I realize that the following will provide no solace for the OP, I think that it is worth mentioning for the benefit of those who–in the future–do a search on this site for the pros and cons of aftermarket warranties:
Most of the veterans of this forum advise against any type of extended warranty, but if somebody is intent on buying an extended warranty, the ONLY ones that might be worth the money are those that are sold by the car manufacturer itself.
Aftermarket warranties have developed into one of the largest scams being perpetrated on the public in recent years, and that is because they always contain “weasel clauses” that allow them to avoid paying most claims that are submitted to them. When one of their victims does occasionally manage to receive a claim payment, it will always be nickeled and dimed down to a very small percentage of the actual costs.
It’s not that complicated to diagnose a defective bearing . . . google the term “chassis ears”
And a noisey bearing IS a defective bearing
Just because a bearing isn’t loosey-goosey does NOT necessarily mean it’s a good bearing
For the record, most of the bearings I’ve replaced were NOT loosey-goosey, but they were making a lot of noise . . . like yours
I agree with the others . . . CarGuard is doing everything in their power to avoid spending any money. They’re probably one of those companies that instructs their “agents” to deny each and every claim, no no exceptions, ever
Well @db4690, they do sometimes.
At only 70k on the vehicles I would only replace the one bearing at this time. This is a premature failure so the bearing wasn’t 100% to begin with. That is why Acura covered it. The bogus warranty has no bearing on this decision.