New Dyson - engineer wants to snap and break cleaner then fix it?

holiam

I purchased a new Dyson(DC27) on April 2nd 2010 in Edinburgh for my new house. I live in London during the week returning to Edinburgh every second weekend.

On the dyson's third use (and most exhaustive to date), I decided to give the skirting boards a quick blast so attempted to detach the extending pole for the first time. This took some effort and when I had problems putting it back, so assuming it was faulty (which it was), I detached the rod from the hose and took it back to Curry's and requested a replacement. They told me that all replacements are carried out through Dyson's customer service and gave me their number to call. I call and they were surprised at the difficulty I was having trying to put this back together, but after 20 minutes of tricks I managed to clip it back on.

It appears that due to a faulty clip/catch?!? The pole will not detach from the machine again. I rang customer service again and they arranged for an engineer to come out.

Engineer was in my house for over an hour and had the machine literally in bits, yanking, pulling, bending - prodding and separating with screwdrivers etc, but although bits of plastic and springs were popping out, he was unable to separate the pole from the machine. He went outside to seek guidance on how to proceed having never experienced this before (claimed he had to go out due to poor signal, although managed two previous calls from my house ok) and spoke to his manager, who basically told him that a replacement machine was not an option, and that he was to proceed to snap the pole from the machine (basically rendering it completely useless) to allow him to detached the full back end of the machine, and so that a whole replacement could be ordered and re-attached.

I said no way was I going to accept this given the age and use of the dyson and requested that he ordered a new replacement.
He rang back but no joy.

I asked him to leave and said that I was going to take this up with Dyson directly and after two call and speaking with the management team in customer sales, they told me all they could do is continue and allow the engineer to fix the machine even if that means snapping it in two so he can detach the whole back end.

I mentioned, and engineer agreed that this looks likely that it was faulty from the outset and therefore not fit for purpose, but the manager said that fit for purpose was a sale related query and I would need to take that up with Curry's

Can anyone help me please? What rights do I have? I know its outside 31 days etc, but had I been at home full time, I probably would have noticed the problem sooner, but it still only a few months old.

Can I return to Curry's - although they said that I had to deal with Dyson direct?

Can I force Dyson to replace the machine; I'm not sure how good it will perform given the beaten it received from the engineer trying to free the pole?

All help and advice welcome

Regards,
Holiam

moonrakerz

You bought it from Currys, they are responsible; Dysons were acting as their agent - just say that you are not happy with their (Dyson's) response.

holiam

In the mean time spoke with consumer direct and followed this up with a call to Curry's customer service who have agreed that action to split the appliace in two to retrieve faulty component is excessive and agrees that it's very unreasonable for me to accept to this as way to resolve issue. They have asked me to write in and hopefully this will be the end of the matter (hope so). Will let you know. Still unhappy regarding Dyson's approach to this, but if I get my replacement then I will be happy

Regards,
Holiam

nicky376

That definitely sounds like a round-about way of doing things? Why can they only replace it if it's snapped in two. It obviously needing replacing if they wanted to do that to start with? Some places are just too strange for words.

It sounds like you've made good progress getting this sorted already. Good luck finally getting one that works properly.

Esqui

Quite surprised - Dyson are normally fantastic.

holiam

Esqui wrote: »

Quite surprised - Dyson are normally fantastic.

Sorry, I don't think I explained to well. Dyson wanted to split the pole from the machine and then order a whole new back end. The front of the machine include head will be unaffected.

At the moment, I can use the machine in upright mode, just cant detach pole and do skirtings etc - if engineer was to continue then I would not be able to use the machine at all - it would physically be in two bits.

It just seems strange that Dyson would recommend this action rather than just accept that it has a serious flaw and replace.

Don't get me wrong, the fact that I was able to call dyson customer services at 7.00pm on a Sunday(and speak with someone in the UK) and book an engineer speaks volumes.
I really do believe they have a very good customer service, but the manager on this occassion is clearly not applying common sense.

If my machine was much older then I guess I would have to accept this, as long as they were going to make good any repair. But on an appliance which has only been used on two previous occasions, and has clearly had this defect right from purchase and remembering that even after 1 hour of an engineer unable to seperate the pole, I would have thought that the obvious solution would be to replace.

The irony here is that after speaking to curry's customer services and them agreeing that this sounds extreme, it sounds (hopefully they will honour their words) like they will replace this item under the sale of goods - which I guess means this faulty unit will be returned to Dyson anyway? Perhaps not - maybe it will just be written off by Curry's.