How long must a manufacturer keep a stock of spares?

Jamp

Hi All

My car alarm was sold with a limited lifetime warranty and its control unit has failed. It was removed by the local agent and sent back to the manufacturer, who have said that they can't get the spares to repair it. Is there a law stating how long manufacturers must keep a stock of spares after a product is discontinued?

The alarm was fitted some 8 years ago but I am hoping the model wasn't discontinued for some time after. I'm trying to find this out via a car forum, but in case anyone can help on this here, it's a Clifford Concept 600.

The distributor is proposing to give the agent a new alarm to fit for me, but I will have to pay for the labour. I feel this is unreasonable since this will cost a lot more than simply removing and refitting the repaired original system.

Cheers,

Jamp

Googlewhacker

I know with boilers it is 10 years, car's however I don't know but my gut instinct is that it doesn't have to be that long

4743hudsonj

AFAIK there is no requirement at all

System

op presumably the company are fulfilling their obligation by supplying a new one the fitting probaably wasnt covered under the warranty -unless you have paperwork that says different i doubt theres much you can do.
how does a "limited lifetime " warranty work ?

Jamp

Thanks for the replies.

Chris, you're probably right but I thought I'd try to find out the facts before I respond to them. I will have to check the paperwork carefully but the warranty is limited in that it cannot be transferred when the vehicle is sold (they don't bank on people keeping cars forever like me!), it only covers certain parts of the system (inc. the control unit) and it only covers the parts rather than labour. I was hoping that if they are expected to keep spares for a certain period, I could argue that they should pay my additional expenses resulting from them not having spares. They have taken over 3 months to decide they can't repair my alarm, without contacting me until I contacted a company director, so I think I'm due a bit of goodwill in any event...

Mark_Hewitt

I think with cars there is an obligation but for a very short time, but that's for engines, critical components etc.
For general products, there is no requirement at all as far as I know. If they can't repair it under warranty because of no spare parts, they should recompense you in some way however.

Jamp

Thanks for the replies. Suffice to say they're not playing ball and expecting me to stump up £300 for the labour of fitting a whole system rather than the £80 to fit the faulty part, if they had the spares to fix it.

I've dug out the warranty docs, scanned and OCR'd (I've added the formatting to highlight the important bits). The relevant bit is pasted below, but due to those three little words underlined, I guess I could be snookered. However they do say they will replace the system component, there's no mention of what happens if the whole system need replacing.

"As the manufacturer, Clifford Electronics warrants to the original consumer purchaser, the system control unit and remote controls to be free from defects in material and workmanship for as long as you own the vehicle in which the system was originally installed. All other parts of the system and accessories to the system are warranted to be free from defects in material and workmanship for one (1) year from the date of purchase. Clifford Electronics will repair or replace, at its option and free of charge during the warranty period, any system component that proves defective in material or workmanship under normal installation, use, and service, provided the product is returned to our factory by an Authorised Clifford Dealer, transportation charges prepaid.
...
This warranty is limited to defective parts and specifically excludes any incidental or consequential damages connected therewith."

Do you think this is worth pursuing with Consumer Direct or similar? The guy at Clifford is not especially helpful and I haven't had a single apology for the delay or failure to fix my alarm.