New kitchens - howdens, wren or benchmarx?

pendragon_arther

New kitchens - howdens, wren or benchmarx?

If you're a masochist go for Wren.

Mojoted

Furts. You sound like you work for Wren!

No, I did not use bleach etc on the doors and drawers and the kitchen is high gloss white with an overhang. The worktop was supplied by Wren via subcontract so they can't blame them either. I use Dettol kitchen wipes on the doors and a kitchen cleaner with kitchen paper. The door and drawer veneers are !!!!! basically. Yes I have a window in my kitchen but that should not cause discoloration on a white door.

Lab report will verify this.

Furts

Mojoted wrote: »

Furts. You sound like you work for Wren!

No, I did not use bleach etc on the doors and drawers and the kitchen is high gloss white with an overhang. The worktop was supplied by Wren via subcontract so they can't blame them either. I use Dettol kitchen wipes on the doors and a kitchen cleaner with kitchen paper. The door and drawer veneers are !!!!! basically. Yes I have a window in my kitchen but that should not cause discoloration on a white door.

Lab report will verify this.

An amusing thought, but I do not work for Wren! My posts are interested in helping, and also in fair play. It is unreasonable to knock Wren when they have taken your door and put it through a laboratory analysis. By all means knock them if the results are fraudulent or unreasonable, but for now they should be given credit for taking such action.

I have mentioned the worktop but you have not answered this so I cannot comment further here. However, if it is what you specified and it is causing problems then you must accept a responsibility here.

Mojoted

Furts. I have sent the door to the labs not Wren. They didn't want to know and just put all the blame on me. They wouldn't even do a site visit. In my 37 years as a marketing professional, I have never come across such appalling customer service.

Furts

Mojoted wrote: »

Furts. I have sent the door to the labs not Wren. They didn't want to know and just put all the blame on me. They wouldn't even do a site visit. In my 37 years as a marketing professional, I have never come across such appalling customer service.

An interesting scenario and I give you credit for doing this. But this will incur cost and if successful, then for what gain?

In all fairness a site visit was not required, and if undertaken might have been detrimental to your stance. The proactive move would have been to take the defective items to the Wren branch and deal face to face.

I detect you have the bit between your teeth, but I am puzzled about your placing an order with Wren. It is easy to trawl this forum, and many others, and see that dealing with Wren is like playing with fire. As such you stand a strong chance of getting burnt. It follows that you have now been burnt, and this is in exactly the way countless people write about on consumer forums.

Equally did the alarm bells not ring when you saw the B Grade celebrity promotion of the top range kitchens at Wren? My intuition is that Linda Barker knows less about kitchen construction and technicalities than I do about the Space Shuttle. Think it through - you are a marketing professional - and you can see that this is no different to Kerry Katona then Peter Andre schmoosing people to shop at Iceland.

But even if the "Linda" range is OK, this clearly shows that the two cheaper, flimsier, ranges are cr-p. Again, as a marketing professional you have the knowledge to see that this is the case.

Clearly you are savvy because you are going for laboratory analysis...but running counter to this you placed an order with Wren.

Mojoted

Furts. We did take a drawer to the showroom and we were basically told to clear off. But you already know this don't you!

Furts

Mojoted wrote: »

Furts. We did take a drawer to the showroom and we were basically told to clear off. But you already know this don't you!

My suggestion is you post some photos of your damaged, and faded, door and drawer fronts. No need to remove them - just photo the units and location, and you may get feedback by opening up your query to others.

As a general comment all kitchens from Magnet, Howdens, Benchmarx, and so on, will be to a similar standard. If some fundamental principles are followed then all should last 20-25 years. So either you have been unlucky - which is possible - or you have chosen and specified a poor kitchen. The latter is possible because the two lower priced ranges from Wren are dire.

Mojoted

My kitchen has a guarantee for 20 years and is not a bottom of the range.

Furts

Mojoted wrote: »

My kitchen has a guarantee for 20 years and is not a bottom of the range.

I have not studied the Wren guarantee, but using my years of experience in the construction industry to guide me, I expect the guarantee to be full of exclusions and weasel words. This raises the question "what exactly does the guarantee cover?"

Even if it is written in "Plain English Campaign" format do you really expect Wren to still be trading in twenty years time?

Even if you have an insurance backed guarantee I would expect there to be an excess to hinder successful claims.

leveller2911

The reason so many kitchen unit doors and drawer fronts made of timber start to change colour is down to the different batches of lacquer used.

I see it so many times on particularly Oak kitchens from Howdens,Wickes,Magnet etc and its nothing to do with UV light, you can have 2 units out of direct sunlight and both will be noticeably different in colour after a few years.

They will rarely pay out due to warranty wording when the problems are de-laminating or colour variation.