Are Seat being reasonable here?

Hi all, the compressor in my aircon has broken. It is going to cost in the region of £1000 to fix, simply because the part alone is £690+VAT. It was broken when I came to use it 2 weeks out of the warranty period (and I was away on holiday for one of those 2 weeks, so not in the car to try the aircon) and Seat have offered to pay 50% of the cost.

Does 50% sound reasonable? I can see that on one side it is out of warranty so they could say "tough", but on the other hand, it was only just out of warranty when I noticed it was broken, and I don't think it is very reasonable to expect such a lightly used part to fail in such a short space of time. The car has only done 25k miles in the 3 years, so it is lightly used, and I do try to run the aircon every so often as that's meant to be good for it.

The car was purchased from a Seat dealer and has a full Seat service history, and the last service, just before the warranty expired, I reported that I'd been hearing a rattling noise from outside the car (i.e. when the windows were open). It may be unrelated, but I think it was the compressor on the way out while the car was still in warranty.

When (if?) it goes in to be fixed, this will be the 11th time it has had to go in for a repair (not including services/MOT or anything) in 2 years. I think it is a car bulit on Friday afternoon. Certainly it doesn't seem to be up to the standard of quality Seat sell their cars on?

I'm going to speak to Seat customer services, but would like to get others' opinions on whether I'm being unreasonable in expecting Seat to cover this under the warranty given the circumstances.

Andy: I suspect it would be cheaper elsewhere...but it is unlikely to be less than half the price. I can get the part for half the price (£340), but doubt I'll get it delivered, fitted and VAT paid for less than the Seat offer, so I'm not convinced it is worth the hassle.

Lou: I see your point, but Seat would have had to pay 100% just days earlier, and realistically the part was either broken or on its last legs at that point, the only difference being I didn't need the aircon on then so didn't try it. If it was well out of warranty then a I'd be happy with just a contribution, but this is clearly a part that wasn't designed/made/fitted correctly originally, which is what the warranty is there for.

They could tell me it isn't covered by the 3 year warranty, but there is also the aspect of my statutory rights- I think it is far to say there is a reasonable expectation for a lightly used part like this in a lightly used car to last for more than 3 years and 2 weeks. Cars should last for many years, and I agree parts will wear out or break, but this particular part after so little use and so little time? It certainly isn't wear and tear and it isn't the case that you'd expect to replace the air con system every 3 years.

It is a similar case with appliances like fridges and ovens etc- you can reasonably expect them to last far longer than the manufacturer's warranty period (often only a year), and outside of this time the manufacturer still has an obligation for a "reasonable" time (more than 2 weeks to fix or replace broken items based on your statutory consumer rights.

I don't know what has broken about the compressor- the Seat dealer just said it was broken and needed replacing. When I try to turn my air con on while the engine is idling the revs do climb slightly, so something is trying to work. No cold air comes out though.

I've just found this thread full of people having the same issue:

http://www.seatcupra.net/forums/showthread.php?t=221994

Seat are being extremely unhelpful, which seems particularly unfair in light of it being a fairly common part known to break easily judging by the above thread.

I've contacted Trading Standards to try to get Seat to fix its inadequate part, will post with how I get on in case it helps anyone else in the future.