Poor Car Warranty Service

This serves to inform you of the utterly poor service from the Innovation Group, the company is my current warranty administrator. My first warranty claim was for a crank pulley. My vehicle a Kia Sportage was towed to Kia Umhlanga on on 12th March 2018. The job was only authorized by Innovation on the 15th March 2018 and the part was ordered ex Johannesburg which arrived on the 19th March 2018. I picked up my vehicle on the 20 March 2018. The limit for the crank pulley is R8500 and the quote from Kia was R12500 of which I needed to pay R4000. I called Innovation to find out if the vehicle could be repaired by another repairer and Innovation advised that car can only be repaired by Kia due to the original parts. I accepted this and when I collected my car on the 20th March I paid the difference of R4000.

In the same week I picked a problem where the car was having trouble with the gears. It is an automatic vehicle and I found that the car could not select the correct gears and was jerking on reverse. I called Kia and informed them about this problem. I then booked the car in on 26 March 2018 for the 140000km service and asked them to check the gearbox. The service was done and the service advisor called me to inform that a sensor on the gearbox was re-programmed and they test drove the car and it was fine. I collected the car and when I got onto the M41 I found that the gear problem was still there. Because it was late I called Kia the next day and the service advisor informed me that I needed to re-book the car. As I was busy in that week and it was a short week with the holiday on Friday I then booked the car the following Tuesday as Monday was also a holiday. I took the car to Kia on the 3rd of April 2018. The gearbox was only stripped on the 5th April and Kia arranged for the gearbox to be collected by Gear and Axle situated in Pinetown for them to diagnose and forward a quote. The repair quote was +- R160000 and I asked Kia to also get a quote for a new gearbox of which the cost was +-R170000 excluding labour. Kia then forwarded both quotes to Innovation. The Kia service advisor also informed me that the waiting period on some of the parts was 4-6 weeks and the same period for a new gearbox. The gearbox on my cover is unlimited which means Kia could have installed a new gearbox. An assessor from Innovation had to go an inspect the vehicle which was only done after 2 days and give feedback to the claims department. I tried to call the claims department on numerous occasions to no avail as I waited almost 45 minutes on the phone. On Thursday 12 April 2018 Kia informed me that Innovation requested for Mayfair gearbox another company to quote on the repair. From the 3rd April 2018 untl 17th April 2018 was the first call I received from Innovation informing me that a quote was received from Mayfair gearbox for +-R42000 that's a difference of about R120000 from the the first quote which Kia received via Gear and Axle. The gentleman (Wesley) from Innovation that called me advised that the gearbox will be collected from Gear and Axle and the car collected from Kia Umhlanga. My concern is that Mayfair gearbox quoted on the repair without inspecting or seeing the actual gearbox. All of this time I have been making a plan to get to and from work as Kia and Innovation did not give me courtesy vehicle. On the first claim for the crank pulley of which had a limit of R8500 Innovation advised me that the car could only be repaired by Kia but now because I have unlimited cover on my gearbox they have asked Mayfair Gearbox to repair and fit the gearbox with no involvement from Kia. I borrowed a car from the time of the first problem with the crank pulley as that repair took just over a week to get sorted and now its exactly 1 month and I have rented a car. This entire problem has costed me an arm and leg in terms of transport to and from work. I logged a complaint with Innovation and they advised me that they will investigate.

In summary I am paying an installment of R6218 and insurance of R932 monthly for a vehicle that I don't have for a month. Innovation is taking too long sort out their mess. I don't know how long more it's going to take to sort out this problem. My transport cost has spiralled and this is not on.