I don’t know if you saw this thread…
But let me give you some pointers on how to possibly resolve this situation before you get an attorney (which is excellent advice for later, and perhaps worth a consultation now. Do you have an attorney friend you can take to lunch?)
- A corporation could be thought of as a chain of people who can make larger and larger dollar decisions on behalf of the corporation. Your daughters engine will cost, what, $6k including labor to replace? (Let’s go with that, the principle is still the same.)
OK, your job is to find the person who makes $6,000 decisions without worrying about the dollar size - someone who makes 5-figure, 6-figure decisions daily. And, at the dealership, that’s going to be 2 people - the owner and the guy who manages it. Anybody else at the dealership is going to have to explain or approve why they are spending $6k on a problem not of their making, and that’s no good because you now have to convince someone to approach their boss with this idea.
Yeah, you don’t want to go that route.
So your best shot is the warranty company.
- Research their executives, their owners. LinkedIn is good, Manta is OK, there are others. Like I mentioned in the thread, you’ll need to know who to address this to. Also, use Hunter.io to get the corporations email structure so you will have a better chance of reaching these people. If you know that their emails are fi_ln @ company.com, that’s a big help.
Of course, your warranty company might be a shell on top of a shell on top of another shell, so who knows? Nobody until you do this research, tbh.
- Do not make the issue about the issue.
Make it much larger, far more damaging and expansive. In the above thread I made the issue age and sexual discrimination in New York City. Not “you lied to us!” Not “you owe us an engine!” Naw, you will need to expand the… how do I say this… the damages which may take place if they don’t make this simple $6k decision.
Fortunately, you have age and sexual discrimination. Can you make the case? If so, make it. I had zero problem going that route in my U-Haul complaint, my job is to get their attention. Were the people genuinely discriminating against my daughters age? Hell if I know, but it didn’t stop me from making the case.
By making it about something much larger, an issue which may make regulatory bodies make enquiries, an issue which may blow up into a subpoena for documentation (for example, does the warranty company approve repairs for men more often than they do for women?), you are more certain of resolving this, and quickly, than if the issue facing the exec is “you’d better honor your own contract or I’ll…” (shake fists). (Please don’t do this, you are just fighting their battle. Make them fight yours.)
A simple $6k fix all of a sudden becomes $50k in research and legal costs. They can do the math, you don’t have to point this out to them.
Anyway, I’ll be glad to help you further if you want. I don’t want to get your hopes up too much, but if you are going to fight this, going to the top with a regulatory/legal issue which will require great expense merely if filed is your best bet. They will have exposure, that I can pretty much guarantee.