Recently my wife and I bought a second hand Jaguar I-Pace EV400. We were both eager to try out an electric car, but were of course worried about the battery going wrong. When we found out that Jaguar offers 8 years / 160’000 km of warranty on the battery, our minds were put at ease and we signed the contract. The car in question was barely five years old and had 77’000 km on the clock, with plenty of warranty remaining on the battery.
For several months we were quite happy with the car, until recently when it started to develop slight vibrations in the steering wheel at certain speeds. We took it to a nearby Jaguar dealership for inspection. The garage suspected that either a wheel was out of balance or one of the wheel bearings had gone bad. Both would have been comparatively cheap and easy fixes.
However, after a few days the dealership called us and informed us that one of the two electric motors was faulty and needed to be replaced. The projected repair cost was 26’000 USD, which was roughly 25% of the original sticker price or 75% of the car’s current value. Since the original three year warranty had already expired, it would be up to us to pay the repair in full.
Astonished by this very steep quotation, I inquired what the dealership was going to do to the car. The mechanic told me that Jaguar dealerships are not authorized to work on the electric motor. The whole motor would need to be removed, sent to Jaguar HQ, and a new motor would need to be bought from Jaguar and installed in the car. Cost of a new motor would be around 22’000 USD, with an additional 4000 USD in labor cost.
At this point I was also in contact with a Jaguar customer care representative via email, to whom I pointed out that an electric motor should not fail after only 82’000 km. Together with the dealership, I asked Jaguar to cover at least part of the repair cost as a goodwill gesture. Jaguar replied that the previous owner had missed the 12 month and 36 month services by a few months each, and therefore Jaguar refused any goodwill gesture.
Back at the dealership I asked what the dealership typically does to the electric motor of an EV when it services the car. To the surprise of probably absolutely nobody, electric motors don’t get serviced. At all. Avid readers might even remember that the Jaguar dealership already told us that it is not allowed to work on the electric motors in any way (except removing them from the car entirely).
Service, no service or late service, the electric motors would be in exactly the same condition. When I pointed this out to the Jaguar customer care representative, he stopped responding to my mails.
Do you think it was a good move by Jaguar to deny any goodwill on the grounds of delayed service intervals, even though the electric motors do not get serviced at all? And what would you do with the car now?
For several months we were quite happy with the car, until recently when it started to develop slight vibrations in the steering wheel at certain speeds. We took it to a nearby Jaguar dealership for inspection. The garage suspected that either a wheel was out of balance or one of the wheel bearings had gone bad. Both would have been comparatively cheap and easy fixes.
However, after a few days the dealership called us and informed us that one of the two electric motors was faulty and needed to be replaced. The projected repair cost was 26’000 USD, which was roughly 25% of the original sticker price or 75% of the car’s current value. Since the original three year warranty had already expired, it would be up to us to pay the repair in full.
Astonished by this very steep quotation, I inquired what the dealership was going to do to the car. The mechanic told me that Jaguar dealerships are not authorized to work on the electric motor. The whole motor would need to be removed, sent to Jaguar HQ, and a new motor would need to be bought from Jaguar and installed in the car. Cost of a new motor would be around 22’000 USD, with an additional 4000 USD in labor cost.
At this point I was also in contact with a Jaguar customer care representative via email, to whom I pointed out that an electric motor should not fail after only 82’000 km. Together with the dealership, I asked Jaguar to cover at least part of the repair cost as a goodwill gesture. Jaguar replied that the previous owner had missed the 12 month and 36 month services by a few months each, and therefore Jaguar refused any goodwill gesture.
Back at the dealership I asked what the dealership typically does to the electric motor of an EV when it services the car. To the surprise of probably absolutely nobody, electric motors don’t get serviced. At all. Avid readers might even remember that the Jaguar dealership already told us that it is not allowed to work on the electric motors in any way (except removing them from the car entirely).
Service, no service or late service, the electric motors would be in exactly the same condition. When I pointed this out to the Jaguar customer care representative, he stopped responding to my mails.
Do you think it was a good move by Jaguar to deny any goodwill on the grounds of delayed service intervals, even though the electric motors do not get serviced at all? And what would you do with the car now?
