Advice please re Currys/Ariston

libitina_2

We bought an Ariston washing machine from Currys in Jan 2004, so less than 2 years ago. Local engineer came out today to say that the bearings had gone and too expensive to repair. Went back to Currys with the sale of goods act where the manager ( ) told us that it was upto Ariston to sort out as it was over 12 months ago it was bought so our contract was no longer with Currys. He said the MOST Ariston would do is to replace it with a refurb as ours is 22 months old, or give a partial refund (maybe upto £100 when the machine cost £250) due to 'wear and tear'.
Got an authorised engineer coming out next week to do an inspection and report.
Is what the manager told us correct? Surely I'm entitled to a FULL refund or a replacement upto the same value?

Any advice gratefully received.

Wig

You are entitled to a FULL refund, *if* the court decides that 20 months is less than what should be expected for a washing machine to last. OR you can prove that there was an inherent fault in the machine that was there from day one, which brought about it's early end.

Your contract is AlWAYS with Currys and will be for eternity it will never pass over to the manufacturer.

Note the word *court* above, that is the only way to resolve this issue after you have hammered your head against curries wall. Write letters to Curries do NOT phone, and keep copies, after giving them 2 months of harrasment take them to court.

I'm presuming you don't have extended warranty. Which you would have got free with a Barclaycard (possibly only platinum) and/or Barclays platinum connect card (which you might not qualify for). But I thought it worth mentioning.

webmasterpolo

Good luck getting good service out of the Dixons Stores Group, would be easier to get blood out of a stone.

http://www.howtocomplain.com has links for DSG I would think. Writing to the MD after a couple of letters to customer services might get you a bit further. Check out Martins customer rights article for all the good legal wording to include: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1049409737,88838,

If you end up with money compensation or more likely with DSG forced to buy anothe yourself I would recommend buying the next one online, high street stores charge for delivery as well and you *WILL* find what you want cheaper.

Check out 'Which' for the best buy machines (should last longer than 22mths...), if you aren't a member ask people here (BOSCH is usually a best buy for most white goods) to tell you. I've got the membership and would happily tell you the best buy for your budget.

Then checkout the shopbots for best prices:

http://www.pricerunner.co.uk
http://www.kelkoo.co.uk
http://www.dealtime.co.uk

Also buy through greaseypalm if it's worth it and use any discount codes you can find on this site or anywhere on the net for your chosen retailer.

For example I recently bought a dishwasher online for £311 inc del, in the shops it's £434 inc del. I used a shopbot to find good prices then searched for vouchers for the cheapest 5 retailers, then checked greasypalm and found the retailer is one of their merchants so used their link. Found £25 off and free delivery voucher for the 3rd cheapest which made them easily the cheapest.

Saved £123 for about 15 minutes surfing. Plus got £4.67 (1.5%) cashback on my greasypalm account for free too. Oh and of course used a rewards credit card so got some cashback from them too.

WOW I'm a bit of a MSE maniac when I think about it... ;-)
-Web

Wig

https://www.rtd.uk.com is a good one

libitina_2

Thank you for all the help and advice guys. I've put in a formal complaint to Currys through https://www.howtocomplain.com.
Lets see if they get back to me.

wobbley

I agree with Wig's view. I think the bottom line is that you didn't pay all that money for a product expecting it to fail after 22 months and be an uneconomic repair. The bearings on a washer are not user servicable and should not have failed unless you were seriously overloading it constantly. A colleague recently had a problem with a 2k sat nav system failing after 18 months. He contacted Trading Standards and they informed him that the 1 year warranty wasn't relevant and the product should last a "reasonable" time before failure. Clearly in this case 22 months is not reasonable.
I too once had an Ariston fail after about 2 years. I had the same result too - the parts are so expensive it's not worth repairing. Lesson one - Don't buy an Ariston. (This is where all the happy Ariston owners flame me!)
And thanks for the comment about Asda on the other thread Libitina. They did get our custom back eventually.

Wig

I might point out that some people don't have a clue about washing, I once saw a girl push a huge bundle of clothes straight into a wash m/c and she had to force them in so they were fairly tightly packed in the drum. Clearly these clothes would not wash but just get wet with sweet smelling water.

If the OP used the machine twice a day every day, then it becomes more understandable that it would fail. if it was overloaded then yes this would be a big reason for failure.

libitina_2

On average it got used 5 or 6 times a week. Not excessive in my book. And certainly not overloaded. Hopefully they'll get back to me fairly soon.

IvanOpinion

Overloading isn't the only thing that can damage the bearings ... under loading a machine can have the same effect. They are primarily designed to operate with a particular weight in the drum .. if it is too heavy or light then it wears the bearings out quicker.

I have also been informed that liquid detergents can cause damage to the alloy fittings in a washing machine (not sure whether to take this with a pinch of salt though).

Ivan