PS3 yellow light of death?

purple_pixie_2

We have had a 60G Sony PS3 for almost 3 years now.It has been well looked after, but tonight it wouldn;t start up and a yellow light was flashing.
Upin googling this problem I found that this is the 'yellow light of death'- it was even featured on Watchdog- thousands of PS3's have this defect but Sony are refusing to acknowledge a production problem and are charging something like £130 to replace the console with a reconditioned one.(Unless it is within the 12 months warrranty).

I was going to call Sony up tomorrow and quote the Sales of Goods Act.As far as I am aware,it states expensive goods such as this should be usable for 6 years from purchase? I have the receipt that proves that this console was purchased less than 3 years ago, and I have done nothing to damage the console within this time.

I just wanted to make sure that I have my facts right before ringing them up,any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks!

gordikin

It's 'up to' 6 years In England....5 years in Scotland. You've had ~3 years of usage and they can and I suspect will take that into consideration. How much did you pay? Do still have the receipt/proof of purchase?

Esqui

Unless you bought it direct from Sony, they have no obligation to you. It's the retailer you should be calling.

purple_pixie_2

I bought it from Asda,I still have the receipt.It was part of a bundle that cost about £400.

natnhay

My brother had this problem with his ps3 (about 2 YRS old), it was purchased from Game Station so he rang them up,and they arranged for it to be collected and repaired at no cost to him.Took about 2 weeks. So i would contact asda in the first instant.I,m sure he said this problem is covered for a repair regardless of the age of the machine.Hope this helps.

vyle

purple_pixie wrote: »

We have had a 60G Sony PS3 for almost 3 years now.It has been well looked after, but tonight it wouldn;t start up and a yellow light was flashing.
Upin googling this problem I found that this is the 'yellow light of death'- it was even featured on Watchdog- thousands of PS3's have this defect but Sony are refusing to acknowledge a production problem and are charging something like £130 to replace the console with a reconditioned one.(Unless it is within the 12 months warrranty).

I was going to call Sony up tomorrow and quote the Sales of Goods Act.As far as I am aware,it states expensive goods such as this should be usable for 6 years from purchase? I have the receipt that proves that this console was purchased less than 3 years ago, and I have done nothing to damage the console within this time.

I just wanted to make sure that I have my facts right before ringing them up,any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks!

Just to correct you on one point - you have 6 years to claim, but that doesn't mean they should last 6 years.

Devin_Shockwell

Nice! The 60Gig is backwards compatible, if it were me I would hesitate returning it even if faulty. That's just me however!

It's quite a common fault to find over the years and simply needs a little engineering TLC to get it working again. Although the old PS3 is a pain in the rear to take apart and fix. If you can't do it yourself I can quite understand the £130 bill for repairs. No guarantee the repair will last for long however!

Nara

This happened to our PS3 also. Got quoted £130 by Sony so contacted Gamestation also with some offical letter i found stating that for the money i paid i expected the item to not break in a short time period (think ours was 2 yrs old) and they sent it off for repair to Sony and paid for it :T:T have to say it was a long shot but best customer service i have ever had!

As for Asda no idea sorry i know some others have had no luck with big stores, seem's the smaller ones have better customer service

4743hudsonj

I love people who go on about YLOD (Yellow light of death). The problem you will have that its NOT always an inherent fault.

The yellow light is displayed for ANY hardware fault (pretty much) So can relate to hundreds, maybe thousands of different failures (As opposed to the 360's RROD which was one very specific fault).

So simply googling it and finding it happens alot is useless.

To get anywhere legally you need an independent report stating that whatever the actual fault is, its inherent and not fair wear and tear or abuse.

Its also worth trying with sony as some have had success in getting them to pay for the replacement but bear in mind that this isnt guaranteed, is not within your rights and that your rights are against the retailer not sony so them offering even a reduced replacement fee is well above what they need to offer you.

Nara

Well paying £300 for an electrical item and i expect it to last for more then 2/3 yrs unless i am throwing it around the room! We tried every solution posted by others on the net to fix it with no luck, it wouldn't play any DVD's or games and was basically useless.
Sony try and tell you its not their fault but it is, they use cheap parts so they break sooner then they should, and to replace it with a refurbished item seems pointless to me as whose to say that one isn't worse then the one you had in the first place!
Also Sony only offer a 2 or 3 month guarantee after fixing it! I said surely they should offer at least a year considering they should be fixing it to a good standard, they are a massive company who make massive profits they could at least have some faith in their own work! Sure if they thought the fault was because you smashed it up then fair enough, but our PS3 had never even moved from its spot for the whole time.
So yeah, anyway we were lucky enough to get it fixed for free, then sold it to my bro and we bought a new slim one, which is ''meant'' to have less problems, and the old one is still going strong too :-)

Check this link out, there are links there to help you write a letter to the retailer

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theoneshow/consumer/2009/07/03/sale_of_goods_act_letter_downl.html