Buying a new car certainly has its perks, but there are also disadvantages worth taking into consideration before taking the plunge. Aside from having to deal with depreciation, you're also stuck with respecting the maintenance schedule to the letter. If not, you're going to end up like this poor man from Ontario. He has learned his lesson the hard way after failing to change the oil in time, which consequently voided the warranty.
Meet Moses Fosuo. He bought a brand-new 2018 Ram 1500 EcoDiesel that came bundled with a 100,000-kilometer (62,000-mile) warranty. When his truck's engine seized all of the sudden, the odometer was showing 91,000 kilometers (56,544 miles). Up until that point, it had been a reliable vehicle and well-suited for a family man with two kids and dogs.
An electrician from Bowmanville, Fosuo got in touch with the dealer to talk about his unexpected predicament. Little did he know, the warranty was no longer valid after missing the oil change specified in the documentation that came with the truck. In an interview with CTV News Toronto, he explained his difficult situation:
"They informed me the engine was no longer working and I was looking at having to have the engine replaced. When I asked them why it was not covered under warranty, they mentioned at 50,000 kilometers [31,068 miles] the oil switch came on and I didn't get an oil change done right away."
He did change the engine oil, but the service was handled by a third-party shop. It's where Fosuo was informed he could use his EcoDiesel pickup for 24,000 kilometers (14,913 kilometers) before having to replace the oil again. The truck's owner explains his Ram did not come with a physical owner's manual as it was incorporated into the infotainment system. He didn't check it, so he had no way of knowing he should've changed the oil once every 16,000 km (9,942 miles) or 12 months, whichever came first.
When contacted by CTV News Toronto, a spokesperson for Ram’s parent company Stellantis said:
"Our authorized Ram dealers reported that said maintenance was not performed to these parameters. There is no hesitancy on our part to comply with the provisions of a warranty, as long as they apply to a factory defect. Damage or failures attributed to any other source are the owner's responsibility."
Consequently, Fosuo must now pay the engine replacement out of his own pocket. It will cost him 19,000 CAD (plus taxes), which works out to about 15,000 USD. Unfortunately, he doesn't have the money to fix it and says the truck will likely be scrapped.
If there's a lesson that needs to be learned, it's that buying a new car comes with a set of responsibilities you must deal with should you want a valid warranty.
