I would like to share my recent experience with the Lifetime Warranty under Pillar 2 of the attached Article. I purchased a brand new model Meriva. If anyone has got one of these with the panoramic roof, please check as my roof has just cracked and i have been totally fobbed off by the so called customer services at Vauxhall, so much so that after reading this article, i tried to contact the MD of Vauxhall to complain. I got to his office but then they would not let me talk to the man himself. When i was looking at buying the car, i had concerns over the Glass roof having a young family myself and potential safety issues associated with glass as opposed to a steel roof. I was assured by the salesman “ Its bullet proof mate, you could roll this car and the roof won’t break”. Well i haven’t rolled the car, but my roof has broke. I took my vehicle to the Vauxhall bodyshop, who took photos and then said they would send these to the warranty people. A couple of hours later, they called me stating that they have reviewed my complaint and decided that as they had not experienced any previous complaints from anyone else, that the cause of damage in their opinion was impact damage and was therefore not covered by warranty. The roof on my car has a small channel running the full length of the roof. The is a gap on one side of the roof between the glass edge and the trim which is wider at the front. My belief is that this gap is acting as a trap that is allowing a build up of dirt and grime, grit etc that is allowing a gradual build up of dirt and road grime, so much so that this is getting trapped and causing a pressure build up which then by compression splintered the edge of the glass, which in turn crack the roof. I suspect that the glass was fitted slightly out of line allowing this fault to materialise. The warranty people are so arrogant and will not even consider this as a possible cause. The "Not So Helpful Helpdesk" have no customer service skills what so ever and treated my complaint with sheer contempt. Having worked in the automotive industry myself for 18 years, i was gobsmacked at the total lack of concern and clearly the “continuous improvement approach” that is part of any manufacturing is not practiced at the guy on the street level when problems arise. I am now going to share my experience with as many people as possible and also post this on as many websites as i can find to try and establish how many more customers have had this problem and if you do get this problem, you know you are not the first to have it so you can tell this to Vauxhall when you complain so hopefully you will obtain better service than i did. My lifetime warranty has been in place for approx 14 months as i purchased the car brand new and I change my car every 3 years and this is the first and last time that i will be buying a Vauxhall and i will also ensure that all of my friends/colleagues who maybe thinking of buying a Vauxhall , should be aware of the total lack of empathy they have if they ever unfortunate enough to have something go wrong with their car.

Pillar 2 refers to the lifetime warranty which underpins Vauxhalls commitment to customer service in attracting and retaining existing and new customers. My experience is clearly the total opposite of what i experienced when i had a problem.

http://www.just-auto.com/interview/vauxhall-md-duncan-aldred_id117856.aspx