Happy Birthday Warranty Direct!

Independent automotive warranty provider, Warranty Direct, celebrates its 10th anniversary this week.

Back in 1997, it was providing extended mechanical breakdown insurance on cars as varied as a Vauxhall Calibra Turbo 4x4 to a VW Scirocco. Today, it has everything from a MINI to Ford Mustang on its books.

Yet during the past decade, the Company has also firmly established itself as the motorists champion blowing the whistle on the most, and least, reliable cars on the market, highlighting the rip off rates charged by some mechanics, and the often dramatically differing repair costs of franchised dealers versus independent garages.

And it hasn’t stopped there.

With Britain’s road network continuing to deteriorate, leaving an estimated annual £320m bill for pothole related damage, Warranty Direct launched www.potholes.co.uk to campaign for improvements.

It also established the unique Reliability Index website (reliabilityindex.co.uk) as the country's first comprehensive, real-time analysis of the health of cars on the road today.

Here, visitors can examine a host of data including the average cost of repair and length of time it should take the garage. Importantly, it also plots the chances of your chosen model suffering from engine meltdown, transmission hiccups, air-conditioning failure and axle or suspension trouble.

Last year, British motorists spent £9.6 billion on servicing and repair costs, and with the failure rate of a car leaping up by 50 percent as it moves out of the comfort zone of the manufacturers three-year warranty, Warranty Direct continues to provide a cost-effective peace of mind should anything go wrong.

With cover starting from as little as £15 a month, visit warrantydirect.co.uk or call freephone 0800 731 7001.