COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — After 23 years with the New York City Fire Department, Michael Peacock hung up his helmet in 2021.
“I decided, ‘Hey, I’m retired. Let me buy my wife a new car,’” Peacock said. He bought a new-to-her 2019 Range Rover.
In February of this year, Peacock and his wife drove that car to Vermont, in below-freezing temperatures, for a ski trip. The next morning, Peacock started the car remotely to give it some time to warm up.
“After about 15 minutes, we went out there, and we get in there and the car is freezing,” Peacock said. He had the car towed to a Land Rover dealership to have it checked out.
“They made a quick, a quick determination that the motor had failed,” Peacock said. “This happened two weeks after the warranty from Land Rover expired.”
But when Peacock bought the car, the salesman also suggested he purchase an extended warranty from Renascent Protection Solutions, based in Dublin, Ohio.
Peacock said it took him weeks to get in touch with the company. But when he finally did, he said Renascent asked for a teardown to verify the diagnosis before paying for repairs. Then, a few weeks later, requested another teardown. And at some point during that process, Peacock said the vehicle’s torque converter was damaged.
“The bill came to like $32,000,” Peacock said. “Renascent paid $16,000.”
Peacock said Land Rover chipped in thousands more, and he paid about $11,000. But Peacock said he never should have had to and wants Renascent to pay him back.
“Renascent is denying me, and I disagree with them,” he said.
Peacock started looking for help closer to Dublin, and found Better Call 4. NBC4 reached out to Renascent, and the following day, received this message:
“Mr. Peacock purchased a vehicle service contract that offers certain benefits. One of those benefits is repair of mechanical breakdown of covered components of the specific vehicle named in the contract. The contract holder is free to select the repair facility of their choice to repair covered mechanical breakdowns to the covered vehicle.
Mr. Peacock’s covered vehicle’s engine seized and needed to be repaired. Although the circumstances regarding the cause of the engine seizing were never entirely clear, our company agreed to replace Mr. Peacock’s vehicle’s engine.
However, the repair facility chosen by Mr. Peacock to perform his repair purposefully and admittedly damaged another component during the removal of the engine, namely the torque converter. The repair facility cut the bolts off the torque converter, rendering it useless, in the course of removing the engine. While perhaps expedient, this course of action created additional mechanical damage to Mr. Peacock’s vehicle.
While the contract Mr. Peacock purchased does cover the engine replacement, damage to other, currently functioning components of the covered vehicle incurred during the repair of the damaged component is not covered.
There was extensive discussion regarding this matter, as could be expected. However, at the end of these discussions, and after sufficient explanation from the repair facility as to the necessity of their actions, our company recently did agree to pay for the purposefully damaged torque converter and that amount has been offered to Mr. Peacock.
In summary, our company always agreed to pay for the damaged components covered by the contract purchased by Mr. Peacock, the dispute was as to the non-damaged components that were purposefully damaged by the repair facility chosen by Mr. Peacock. However, as mentioned, this dispute should now be resolved via the agreement to by our company to pay Mr. Peacock for the damaged torque converter.”
Statement from Renascent Protection Solutions
That amount was $2,300 — about the cost of the torque converter. But Peacock said it also came with a valuable lesson.
“When you go to sign for a warranty, read it,” he said. “If you don’t understand it, don’t buy the car. Go home, read it a few times, and you’re going to realize, if this car gets damaged, or breaks down, I should say, you might be in for some big monies.”
