EU Law 2 Year Warranty vs. Mfgr Standard Warranty

fiish

This is being discussed in the O2 forums with regard to the iPhone, and I believe that it would benefit the knowledge of MSE members.

EU law apparently mandates a 2-year guarantee for consumer goods sold within the EU area. Whereas Apple only offer a one-year guarantee for their products - if you want longer coverage you must, according to them, buy the appropriate 3-year AppleCare plan.

So the question is that would a manufacturer, Apple in this example, be breaking the law then if they refused warranty service after the first year has lapsed and within the second year?

Does anyone have experience with using this rule to obtain an additional year's coverage where the standard warranty is only a year, for any other product?

(I am aware that the Sale of Goods Act apparently provides for up to 6 years, but the post-6-month burden-of-proof shift blunts it a lot for consumers)

Bowling_4_Gold

as long as you can prove it is a manufacturing fault, Apple would be wrong to refuse repairs, but if it is an average user-generated fault, they are quite within the law to refuse a repair after the 1st 12 months.

cardinalbiggles

I would suspect that since you have to take 18 month or 24 month contracts with O2 on the iphone that you would reasonable expect it to last the duration of your contract. I suspect this would have to be dealt with by O2 though as they supply the units in the first place when you sign up with them.

This is of course if you are on a contract.

superscaper

fiish wrote: »

This is being discussed in the O2 forums with regard to the iPhone, and I believe that it would benefit the knowledge of MSE members.

EU law apparently mandates a 2-year guarantee for consumer goods sold within the EU area. Whereas Apple only offer a one-year guarantee for their products - if you want longer coverage you must, according to them, buy the appropriate 3-year AppleCare plan.

So the question is that would a manufacturer, Apple in this example, be breaking the law then if they refused warranty service after the first year has lapsed and within the second year?

Does anyone have experience with using this rule to obtain an additional year's coverage where the standard warranty is only a year, for any other product?

(I am aware that the Sale of Goods Act apparently provides for up to 6 years, but the post-6-month burden-of-proof shift blunts it a lot for consumers)

Did you buy directly from Apple? If not neither the EU Directive (which isn't a law anyway) nor the SOGA applies to Apple. The SOGA act is essentially our implementation of the EU directive (directive, not law!!) because it actually is better than it. The burden of proof shift after 6 months is actually the same in the EU directive. It also applies to the retailer not the manufacturer, just like SOGA. The only difference between the EU directive and SOGA is that SOGA gives better longer protection.

I think this is a massive misunderstanding (and probably worth those wanting to talk about the EU directive to read it) in the use of "guarantee", this hasn't got anything to do with manufacturer warranties which are still essentially a bonus given by the manufacturer. The "guarantee" in the EU directive is merely conformity of goods by the seller. The 2nd major misunderstanding is the the EU directive is equivalent to being a UK law. It's not, it's a directive which each country implements as its' own law with its' own interpretation. Hence the SOGA in the UK. Trying to directly use or quote the EU directive is nothing short of shooting yourself in the foot.

The only involvement legally that Apple have is when it is either a safety protection issue or when the seller needs to seek recompense (i.e. O2).

Meepster

I couldn't have put that better myself superscaper!!!