Opel's after-sale service

Opel cars come under a two-year service guarantee, and my car's guarantee expired on Aug. 22, 1999. On Aug. 10, I spoke to the head of the Opel Pengangsan workshop and explained that I had a problem with my car's timing belt, to which I was told that it was probably the fan belt and not the timing belt.

On Aug. 14, I took the car in for a tune-up and I was told that the fan belt was cracked, but there were currently no fan belts in stock.

On Aug. 22, when I took the car in to get a replacement fan belt, I was told that the service guarantee had already expired. However, they said the matter would be reported to Opel's head office. On Sept. 14, we were told that the belt could not be replaced under the warranty because it did not meet the criteria for replacement. This, however, had not been mentioned before this time. The workshop did suggest it was important to change the fan belt due to it being badly cracked.

Considering that our claim on this matter was sent to Opel before the warranty expired, and at that time the workshop was out of stock, I hope that General Motors Indonesia will consider replacing my car's fan belt.

S.L. ADWANI

Jakarta