Vlog-style report today - it's not every day you have to pick up a $350k luxury saloon, and deal with people who seem hell-bent on shooting themselves in the foot in the service department.

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"Regrettably, my 2015 Captiva has a (potentially) blown turbo. I am taking it to Holden next week for it to be assessed. Luckily my car is still under warranty. Will my turbo be replaced under warranty?"

So I’m not going to use the guy’s name here, because I don’t want to embarrass him or affect the drama playing out at the dealership. And in response to him, I explained that warranty covers manufacturing defects and premature failures.

So, if you have your car serviced on time and you don’t abuse it, these kinds of defects are almost certain to be covered under warranty. If you don’t get it serviced properly then they’re standing on a pretty strong foundation when they tell you the repair bill is going to be your problem. 

So I asked our hero about the service history - and the response I got made me feel a little like Neo, taking the red pill.

"I got the car regularly serviced at the kms but not in line with the months. For example, when it was due for the 75,000km/45-month service, it was serviced at 76,500km/50 months. Would that be a risk to a warranty claim? The car had never been abused just driven as a family car."

It’s the time or the distance - whichever comes first. That’s absolutely clear in all the documentation. ‘I didn’t know’ is not a defence. Most modern cars have a service indicator - a message pops up and says ‘service due now’.

There’s absolutely no ambiguity about what that means.

A massive five months late on the time. Jesus. Five months… (That’s owner abuse, even if you drive like Liz Regina’s in the back, every day.)

So this is the bit where I explain to the punter that bracing for significant financial impact seems prudent. If you’re ever in this position I wouldn’t mention the service history - but it’s gunna take a miracle of Biblical proportion for them to overlook that. 

You simply must get services done on time - meaning time or distance - whichever occurs first - otherwise it does constitute owner abuse. The average car in Australia drives just under 15,000 kilometres a year, and that means about half of all cars subject to 12-month/15,000-kilometre service intervals are going to have the time come up before the distance.

The other thing to realise is that the time component is not a rip-off. If you don’t drive that much, this is hell on earth for engine oil. Lots of impurities get into your oil, thanks to not very much full-temperature operation between each cold start. This is very bad for your engine. It’s why they engineer in a time component in the first place.

And you can’t negotiate this away, no matter how clever an orator you are. It’s not a debate. Servicing is a black and white obligation.

If you fail to meet these obligations and you’re looking at a massive bill, about all you can do is think about getting a decent independent mechanic to do the repairs, because that’s gunna be thousands of dollars cheaper than a dealership, and you could also think about fitting a quality, aftermarket turbo for the same reason.