Car trouble

hAvinG a new Jaguar can be costly. Driving down a country lane, a deer ran out in front of my Xe. Travelling at 40mph to 45mph, i made an emergency stop. There was a bang and the rear end of the bonnet shot up by six inches.

My wife and i thought i must have hit the animal, but we saw it running away and there was no damage to the front of the car. i hadn’t hit anything.

it turned out when i braked hard,

the pedestrian protection system operated, as it should when a car hits a person.

A detector fires off bonnet activators, raising the bonnet to provide a soft landing for the pedestrian. Unfortunately, my Jaguar dealer doesn’t agree that repairing this is warranty work. So I have to pay £1,500 to fix damage to the hinges caused by the protection system and its activators.

I’m just lucky that the bonnet wasn’t wrecked or it would have cost me a whopping £4,000. I couldn’t claim on my insurance, as there was no accident, only avoidance of one.

JOHN WRIGHT, Duston, Northants.