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My daughter owns a 2010 Suzuki Grand Vitara, The car has done approx 80,000km. She and her husband have owned it since new.
The ABS system has recently failed.
The Suzuki agent has quoted $5,000 for the repairs - and has refused to pay for them.
How long should a car owner expect an ABS system to last before repairs and should/how can the agent be approached to pay for those repairs?

As your daughter and son-in-law meet much of the criteria that manufacturers apply when extending post-warranty goodwill assistance, I would have thought that Suzuki would at least contribute to the cost of repair, if not pay 100%.
If this vehicle has always been serviced by a Suzuki dealer, I'd definitely take this matter further - to Suzuki NZ in the first instance. Although the manufacturers usually prefer to deal with their dealers and not retail customers, if you are not getting any satisfaction at dealer level, perhaps you may need to escalate the matter to Suzuki.
I would point out that a factor that manufacturers take into account when considering goodwill, which you haven't mentioned, is whether or not the vehicle has always been serviced within their official dealer network. This is because they consider the warranty period to be agreed upon by both parties at the time of purchase, however they also consider that goodwill goes both ways. In other words, if you've extended goodwill to them by continuing to do business with them post-warranty, they are more inclined to reciprocate by extending goodwill in the event of a failure outside of the warranty period.
The other reason for declining goodwill assistance if the vehicle has been serviced outside of their network is that non-approved parts, lubricants, fluids etc could have been used which could potentially contribute to a failure.