Rights on Cancelling Car Service Contract

[Chrispee]

Would appreciate the PH's thoughts on this one:

Mrs CP's Suzuki Swift is on a service plan that's paid by direct debit with the dealer franchise it was bought from, which included Suzuki in the network when the plan was taken out, for clarity it was bought from a non Suzuki sister garage

I found out today that the dealership of the franchise the service plan was taken out with - (Hyundai & Suzuki), has now shut permanently. We took out the service plan to continue the service activated warranty that Suzuki do similar to Toyota.

Now that the dealer gone, am I within my rights to ask for all my money back and to take the car to a Suzuki dealer. As mentioned there is a sister set of dealers - they only are franchised for Kia - I'm going to make an assumption Suzuki won't honour the extended warranty via these dealers which was one of the main reasons we took the plan out. We haven't had any services from the plan yet. I paid for the last service in cash and got the plan after to take us to 2027 when the warranty would expire anyway.

I looked for T's & C's but couldn't see any really in the email we got with the contract, and it's not like there is anyone to speak to at the dealership now. The direct debit is taken by plan my service plan LLP who are now Edynamix

Appreciate any advice before I call the sister dealer & Suzuki UK on Monday, would it be worth cancelling the DD now as a first step.

[Jordie Barretts sock]

Was the service plan with the now closed dealership, or Suzuki UK?

If the latter, I don't think you have a case from how you've explained it.

[Chrispee]

Jordie Barretts sock said:

Was the service plan with the now closed dealership, or Suzuki UK?

If the latter, I don't think you have a case from how you've explained it.

All the paperwork has only the closed dealership so I would assume them, nothing referencing Suzuki on it - I didn't clock this at the time.

[alscar]

If I have understood the situation correctly I think at the very least I would wait until you have spoken to the sister dealer and then Suzuki UK before cancelling the dd.
My guess is that you would simply take the car to another Suzuki dealer to be serviced.
If it was previously a dealer specific ( nothing to do with Suzuki ) who has then gone out of business then it may be it is now “ worthless “ and the chances of money back will be remote.
Hopefully between the sister dealer and Suzuki you will be able to plan your next move on Monday.
Good luck.

[Jordie Barretts sock]

Next question, has the franchise ditched all it's Suzuki outlets? If so, you gave a good point. If not, they'll probably say use another outlet - never mind it's 300 miles away or whatever.

I would guess ringing the franchise on Monday and be firm but polite. Suzuki cannot refuse their extended warranty as long as the car is serviced in accordance with their requirements. It doesn't have to be a Suzuki dealer.

[dreamcracker]

I would speak to someone at Edynamix, as that appears to be who your contract is now with.

You should not cancel direct debits if you still have a valid contract.

[Chrispee]

alscar said:

If I have understood the situation correctly I think at the very least I would wait until you have spoken to the sister dealer and then Suzuki UK before cancelling the dd.
My guess is that you would simply take the car to another Suzuki dealer to be serviced.
If it was previously a dealer specific ( nothing to do with Suzuki ) who has then gone out of business then it may be it is now “ worthless “ and the chances of money back will be remote.
Hopefully between the sister dealer and Suzuki you will be able to plan your next move on Monday.
Good luck.

This will be my first plan. I have a feeling the plan we were sold is nothing to do with Suzuki as I can't find any details of the 8 digit service activated warranty code we should have been supplied. The car has the official service stamp in the book so i'm not super concerned, but a bit annoying regardless

Jordie Barretts sock said:

Next question, has the franchise ditched all it's Suzuki outlets? If so, you gave a good point. If not, they'll probably say use another outlet - never mind it's 300 miles away or whatever.

I would guess ringing the franchise on Monday and be firm but polite. Suzuki cannot refuse their extended warranty as long as the car is serviced in accordance with their requirements. It doesn't have to be a Suzuki dealer.

Yes that's correct. The Franchise is now Kia only. They are relatively local so that isn't a massive concern, but the plan was taken out expressly to continue the warranty. Looking at Suzuki's SAW T & C's it appears a Suzuki centre must do it - so it's unlikely to cover the plan if it continues with Kia.

dreamcracker said:

I would speak to someone at Edynamix, as that appears to be who your contract is now with.

You should not cancel direct debits if you still have a valid contract.

Sensible. Trying to get contact details for these places is such a challenge

[Chrisgr31]

So the dealership used to operate some units that were trading as Hyundai/Suzuki and some units that were trading as Kia. You bought the extended warranty from a unit trading as Kia. Whilst you bought it from the Unit trading as Kia it actually has the name of the unit trading as Hyundai/Suzuki on it.

Is the name on the contract a limited company? If so does that limited company still exist? This page suggests the Suzuki plan is run by Emac https://cars.suzuki.co.uk/owners/servicing/service...

[Chrispee]

Chrisgr31 said:

So the dealership used to operate some units that were trading as Hyundai/Suzuki and some units that were trading as Kia. You bought the extended warranty from a unit trading as Kia. Whilst you bought it from the Unit trading as Kia it actually has the name of the unit trading as Hyundai/Suzuki on it.

Is the name on the contract a limited company? If so does that limited company still exist? This page suggests the Suzuki plan is run by Emac https://cars.suzuki.co.uk/owners/servicing/service...

Other way round. Car was bought from the Kia dealer. Sister dealer traded as Hyundai + Suzuki. Bought service plan with Hyundai/Suzuki dealer which is headed on their paper as Hyundai " same dealer group" which it also states at the bottom of the contract.

Nowhere is Suzuki mentioned on the paperwork but my assumption was that because it's a service at an official Suzuki centre, then then service activated warranty could be continued by each service out to 7 years old.

Like you say, no mention of Emac which suggests I need to have some conversations with the still open sister dealer and company that were collecting the payments

[Sheepshanks]

We got an EMAC one cancelled and refunded, but it was done by dealer who “forgot” to apply a 5 yr warranty to a new SEAT. Turned out they knew but kept the money (it was paid separately) and didn’t tell us. This only became apparent at 3yrs when we’d already started the service plan so there’d be no issues with warranty cover.

So instead of the Emac service plan the dealer put the car onto the VAG All In cover, which includes servicing, and cancelled and refunded the Emac plan.

Dealer took care of it all - they didn’t have a lot of choice really. Individual garages can be a bit of a nightmare but big dealer groups are usually a bit more professional.

Have you checked where the nearest authorised Suzuki service centre is? It could be one of the remaining sister dealers have retained this.

[GasEngineer]

Chrispee said:

Appreciate any advice before I call the sister dealer & Suzuki UK on Monday,....

Any update OP?

[ALPandy90]

We had a similar issue when Phoenix ceased to exist a few years back. We bought the wife's Suzuki from there and got a decent deal on a three year service plan with them too. After year one, the company was dissolved and we were basically told "tough s**t" so we lost our service plan that we'd already paid for.

[Chrispee]

Thanks for the replies all, after chasing and being passed between Edynamix and the remaining dealerships a couple of times last week, I was advised to email the dealer finance director and request the money back which i'm waiting for a reply on. The direct debit was cancelled on the other end at least.

On a separate note Suzuki UK were less than helpful with the extended warranty query as there was only an invoice for the service, not a paper health check. I was sent a video health check at the time so will make sure to get a better paper trail when it goes to a different dealer next year