John Lewis 5 year guarantee on TVs is a load of rubbish - advice needed please!

moonrakerz

patman99 wrote: »

Somebody needs to do a full reference peice about electrical goods. Apparrently certain items have a legal 'acceptable life' during which the retailor has a legal obligation to repair it for free.

I agree with your first comment, your second is, incorrect. If you read the things that you quote then these publications are - wrong !

There is no such thing as a legal 'acceptable life'.
Most purchases are covered by the Sale Of Goods Act which basically says that if an item fails within 6 months the retailer has to prove that it was not faulty at the time of sale. After six months it is up to the consumer to prove that the item was defective in some way.
The Act also gives the consumer the right (no more than that !) to claim damages for up 6 years from the purchase - but the onus of proof is on him.

Would really suggest that people read and understand this-

http://www.berr.gov.uk/whatwedo/consumers/fact-sheets/page38311.html

System

Update

Manager called on Monday and was given the choice of :

1. Sending an engineer to attempt to fix it again
2. A new television with better specs than our current one, which costs £2200 with 1 year manufacturer warrantee. However there is a problem, the TV in question is currently out of stock and JL apparently have no idea when/if they will be back in stock. Therefore this involves a wait of up to 6 weeks.
3. A £1500 cash settlement straight away.

1 is out of the question, as it's pretty obvious the TV is irreparable.

£1500 will barely pay for a good quality replacement, but having to wait 6 weeks for a TV is risky. The manager has promised us that all three options will still be available to us in 6 weeks time, however we were also promised an engineer visit for the past month, which never happened.

Anyone got any advice? Should we take the money? Or risk waiting around for the TV?

knightstyle

While you decide what to do put all this in writing, keep a copy and send it recorded delivery to the manager. You may need this if he is replaced or goes back on what he said on the phone.
Why can't they get a set from another store?

vyle

knightstyle wrote: »

While you decide what to do put all this in writing, keep a copy and send it recorded delivery to the manager. You may need this if he is replaced or goes back on what he said on the phone.
Why can't they get a set from another store?

I suspect that for that age and that much money it was either a plasma or CRT. In which case, sony doesn't make them any more so there would be no way to source one.

Also, for a TV of that age, to get a like for like specification, OP will probably be entitled to a tv of about...£3K at most. That's still an awesome TV, though, so even if they only get 2k (which I doubt it'd be that low) you can get pretty much the best that's available on the market.

patman99

Richard Knight from Essex Trading Standards was on BBC Essex this afternoon, interestingly, someone asked about warranties. I was surprised by his answer.
Basically, there is no legal requirement for manufactuers to offer any kind of warranty, they do so voluntarely. The minimum (set by the EU) is 2 years, but, because in the UK, we have the 6-year rule (which requires a consumer to report any fault within 2 months of occurrance), we are way ahead of the game.

woody01

candyflossing wrote: »

Update

Manager called on Monday and was given the choice of :

1. Sending an engineer to attempt to fix it again
2. A new television with better specs than our current one, which costs £2200 with 1 year manufacturer warrantee. However there is a problem, the TV in question is currently out of stock and JL apparently have no idea when/if they will be back in stock. Therefore this involves a wait of up to 6 weeks.
3. A £1500 cash settlement straight away.

1 is out of the question, as it's pretty obvious the TV is irreparable.

£1500 will barely pay for a good quality replacement, but having to wait 6 weeks for a TV is risky. The manager has promised us that all three options will still be available to us in 6 weeks time, however we were also promised an engineer visit for the past month, which never happened.

Anyone got any advice? Should we take the money? Or risk waiting around for the TV?

£1500 will almost pay for a far higher specification that you have i guarantee it.

If your TV is old (which it sounds like), then that cash would go towards a LED TV. They make Plasma and LCD look very poor.

custardy

OP,have a look around online at what 1.5K buys on the TV front nowadays
then you can decide if its enough bearing in mind if the TV broke 7 months later you would have had to foot the whole bill

Kavanne

wow 1500 buys a NICE TV!!

dmg24

I too would be very surprised that you cannot get an equivalent TV for £1500. Can you tell us which TV you currently have, and its spec?

patman99

How big was/is the broken TV?, £1.5k would buy a quality Panasonic or Samsung FullHD at 50" if you look round.