New BYD Sealion 7 AC failed 3 times in 4 months – does this qualify as a major failure under ACL?

Hey everyone, looking for some advice and sorry for the long post.

I purchased a new BYD Sealion 7 at the end of September last year. Unfortunately, during the handover we discovered that the air conditioner wasn’t working on delivery. The salesperson and I only noticed this when we walked over to the car after the paperwork was already signed.

In hindsight I probably should have refused delivery, but I assumed it was a minor issue that would be fixed quickly.

The dealership booked the car in with their service department and provided me with a loan vehicle. After a few days they said it was repaired — they replaced the compressor discharge pipe.

Everything seemed fine for a while, but three months later the exact same problem happened again.

When I tried to book a service appointment, the earliest slot was one week away. I dropped the car off and later that same day received a message saying the car was ready for pickup. When I arrived, I was told that they actually needed to order parts and asked me to take the car home.

This meant I ended up driving the car for about two weeks with no air conditioning during a QLD summer.

During that time I had to chase updates myself:

• First call to the service department: they said they would contact me once they had news.
• Second call: they told me the replacement part had not yet been approved by BYD.

So I called BYD Australia directly. Interestingly, about an hour later the service department suddenly had the part approved.

I brought the car back four days later (earliest appointment available). This time they replaced the compressor suction pipe.

When I asked why the issue wasn’t fixed the first time and what happens if it fails again, the response I got was essentially:

Unfortunately, one week later the AC failed again for the third time.

At this point I’ve contacted BYD Australia directly and sent a formal email requesting a resolution because the vehicle has now had three AC failures within roughly four months of ownership.

From what I understand about Australian Consumer Law, a vehicle may have a major failure if:

• It cannot be used for its normal purpose, or
• It has repeated failures despite repair attempts.

Given the AC has failed multiple times and the car has already had two repair attempts, I’m starting to feel that this may fall into that category.

My questions are:

1. Would repeated AC failure like this potentially qualify as a major failure under ACL?
2. Do two unsuccessful repair attempts count as “multiple attempts” under the law?
3. Has anyone successfully obtained a replacement vehicle or refund through BYD or through QCAT in a similar situation?

At this point I’m honestly leaning towards requesting either a replacement vehicle or a refund, as confidence in the reliability of the car is pretty low.

Any advice or similar experiences would be really appreciated.