New kitchens - howdens, wren or benchmarx?

Furts

leveller2911 wrote: »

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.

A good point. Consumers should be more savvy with kitchen ordering. The source of the doors should be investigated, all should be from the same supplier and batch codes should apply. Provided the consumer makes this a condition of order then they could get a comeback if things go wrong.

Mojoted

Furts wrote: »

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.

Their guarantee is indeed full of weasel words and a longlist of exclusions which seem to cover just about every claim eventuality. They have a gushing description of their state of the art factory complete with cutting edge technology, but not once do they mention compliance to industry standards such as BS 6222-3-1999. Kitchens have to endure heat, moisture,vibration, banging, slamming and weight resistance. To expect your kitchen to live up to these expectations is not wilful damage to their product which is what I have been accused of. Most people replace their kitchens every 10-15 years so Wren do not care about brand loyalty or return custom in the same way FMCP (fast moving consumer products) sectors have do.

It seems to me that marketing and sales are the only area of their business they invest in or care about. Negative reviews on consumer forums are pounced on immediately by their PR trouble shooters. You can see how aggressively they remove negative posts from their own FB page and from sites such as Trustpilot and Review Centre. Such a shame they do not apply such diligence to their product delivery, quality and customer service.

Even if I do not win this case I will still ensure that my experience is out there in the public domain for others to learn and hopefully benefit from. It would not have cost much for Wren to rectify the problems with my kitchen and this has cost them several sales. My neighbour was all set to splash out 17k for a new kitchen from Wren until she saw the state of mine.

Furts

Mojoted wrote: »

Their guarantee is indeed full of weasel words and a longlist of exclusions which seem to cover just about every claim eventuality. They have a gushing description of their state of the art factory complete with cutting edge technology, but not once do they mention compliance to industry standards such as BS 6222-3-1999. Kitchens have to endure heat, moisture,vibration, banging, slamming and weight resistance. To expect your kitchen to live up to these expectations is not wilful damage to their product which is what I have been accused of. Most people replace their kitchens every 10-15 years so Wren do not care about brand loyalty or return custom in the same way FMCP (fast moving consumer products) sectors have do.

It seems to me that marketing and sales are the only area of their business they invest in or care about. Negative reviews on consumer forums are pounced on immediately by their PR trouble shooters. You can see how aggressively they remove negative posts from their own FB page and from sites such as Trustpilot and Review Centre. Such a shame they do not apply such diligence to their product delivery, quality and customer service.

Even if I do not win this case I will still ensure that my experience is out there in the public domain for others to learn and hopefully benefit from. It would not have cost much for Wren to rectify the problems with my kitchen and this has cost them several sales. My neighbour was all set to splash out 17k for a new kitchen from Wren until she saw the state of mine.

It appears that we are now on a similar wavelength. Regarding your door that you sent to the lab, how do you expect this to progress your claim? You appear to be accepting that there is no guarantee on it and Wren are making this clear by their actions.

A Court Case will take time and expense. Should you be devoting your time to accepting the kitchen, or purchasing new doors? You are probably in a position to specify something decent in the light of your experiences.

You may like to reflect on the defective kitchen that I referred to in my earlier post. That too was in gloss white!

LaLaC

Never use Wren. Just had a bad experience with Wren Kitchens:

1. My initial order was placed on 29th June, as I wanted fitting to be complete by end of September. I paid a deposit and agreed that Wren would fit the kitchen. I had to chase and chase and chase for them to arrange for fitters and for a final measure. Only when I got so frustrated I tried to cancel my order did anyone get in touch with me to arrange fitting. Kitchen eventually started on 22nd September. Still not finished as at 27th October and no sight of when it might be finished.

2. The kitchen was wrongly measured resulting in the wrong cupboard being supplied, as well as this, two other other parts were not delivered as they should have been.
a. The fitters supplied through Wren, stopped working with Wren during my fitting process. I heard this from them, not from Wren. Wren have never been in contact to discuss. Wren need to supply new fitters or else the work is not guaranteed. The missing/wrong items have been delivered, I do not have any details from Wren on new fitters.
c. At no point has anyone ever apologised for this nor have they been in contact with me or gone out of their way about next steps. I have to contact them at each point and that can be tricky as the phone can just ring out. Eventually, they sent out the Area Installation Manager who was amazing whilst he was with me. Now it's two full days later and I still have not heard from anyone at Wren when they might finish my kitchen.

3. As soon as the TOTAL was paid and you have to pay the total amount to get the delivery confirmed, that includes fitting and all. It then becomes nigh on impossible to get in touch with Wren.

4. As far as I am concerned as a customer, Wren is one company, yet each store passes on responsibility to the other store or to head office and vice versa. Or from Head Office to the Delivery Team or the Despatch Team. It’s always everyone else’s fault.

6. The delivery people scuffed the paintwork all the way up the stairs. I rang to inform Wren the day after delivery (25th September) and sent photos on 14th October, no one has either apologised or advised what they are going to do about it.

7. The fitters selected by Wren didn’t turn up for one week following completion of stage one of the kitchen to turn on the electricity and gas. Total 23 days without washing machine or cooker. My kitchen is small - 3.6m x 1.7m. Then the heating didn't work. Was without for 5 days, Fitter never came back. Ended up getting out my own plumber to sort.

8. And finally, for anyone that hasn’t done a kitchen before, there’s so much that you need to know and Wren can’t really supply the advice that you need. I confessed this to both of the Designers that came round to measure and advised them that I was after the same amount of storage space. I have considerably less storage space now than I had before. For example, the corner unit is 20cm shorter than my last one, no one highlighted this, so now I have 20cm of dead space under a work top. I understand why, it's less now that it's in and explained. But I would have liked this to be been explained up front as I would not have gone ahead with this particular kitchen.

Furts

LaLaC wrote: »

Never use Wren. Just had a bad experience with Wren Kitchens:

1. My initial order was placed on 29th June, as I wanted fitting to be complete by end of September. I paid a deposit and agreed that Wren would fit the kitchen. I had to chase and chase and chase for them to arrange for fitters and for a final measure. Only when I got so frustrated I tried to cancel my order did anyone get in touch with me to arrange fitting. Kitchen eventually started on 22nd September. Still not finished as at 27th October and no sight of when it might be finished.

2. The kitchen was wrongly measured resulting in the wrong cupboard being supplied, as well as this, two other other parts were not delivered as they should have been.
a. The fitters supplied through Wren, stopped working with Wren during my fitting process. I heard this from them, not from Wren. Wren have never been in contact to discuss. Wren need to supply new fitters or else the work is not guaranteed. The missing/wrong items have been delivered, I do not have any details from Wren on new fitters.
c. At no point has anyone ever apologised for this nor have they been in contact with me or gone out of their way about next steps. I have to contact them at each point and that can be tricky as the phone can just ring out. Eventually, they sent out the Area Installation Manager who was amazing whilst he was with me. Now it's two full days later and I still have not heard from anyone at Wren when they might finish my kitchen.

3. As soon as the TOTAL was paid and you have to pay the total amount to get the delivery confirmed, that includes fitting and all. It then becomes nigh on impossible to get in touch with Wren.

4. As far as I am concerned as a customer, Wren is one company, yet each store passes on responsibility to the other store or to head office and vice versa. Or from Head Office to the Delivery Team or the Despatch Team. It’s always everyone else’s fault.

6. The delivery people scuffed the paintwork all the way up the stairs. I rang to inform Wren the day after delivery (25th September) and sent photos on 14th October, no one has either apologised or advised what they are going to do about it.

7. The fitters selected by Wren didn’t turn up for one week following completion of stage one of the kitchen to turn on the electricity and gas. Total 23 days without washing machine or cooker. My kitchen is small - 3.6m x 1.7m. Then the heating didn't work. Was without for 5 days, Fitter never came back. Ended up getting out my own plumber to sort.

8. And finally, for anyone that hasn’t done a kitchen before, there’s so much that you need to know and Wren can’t really supply the advice that you need. I confessed this to both of the Designers that came round to measure and advised them that I was after the same amount of storage space. I have considerably less storage space now than I had before. For example, the corner unit is 20cm shorter than my last one, no one highlighted this, so now I have 20cm of dead space under a work top. I understand why, it's less now that it's in and explained. But I would have liked this to be been explained up front as I would not have gone ahead with this particular kitchen.

To use a Robert Peston phrase... To state the bleedin obvious to all mse forum users this situation is utter madness.

Nobody, and I repeat nobody, should pay for kitchen units and installation in full without even a sniff of the units being supplied and the installation being done.

Wren are taking the p-ss out of this consumer by taking the money up front and then laughing all the way to the bank. But to be brutally honest, whilst I sympathise with LaLaC, agreeing to such demands from Wren was naive and bordering on madness. Fire should be fought with fire and this mindset should apply to all consumers when dealing with Wren.

Mojoted

Furts wrote: »

It appears that we are now on a similar wavelength. Regarding your door that you sent to the lab, how do you expect this to progress your claim? You appear to be accepting that there is no guarantee on it and Wren are making this clear by their actions.

A Court Case will take time and expense. Should you be devoting your time to accepting the kitchen, or purchasing new doors? You are probably in a position to specify something decent in the light of your experiences.

You may like to reflect on the defective kitchen that I referred to in my earlier post. That too was in gloss white!

So what you are saying is that I should shell out more money on replacement doors and just let Wren get away with supplying a product that is not fit for purpose? I don't think so!

Paradigm

Mojoted wrote: »

So what you are saying is that I should shell out more money on replacement doors and just let Wren get away with supplying a product that is not fit for purpose? I don't think so!

I haven't noticed when you had your kitchen fitted (just skimmed the thread) but the Sale of Goods act 1979 may apply in your case... the words "fit for purpose" are used quite often.

rogersimar

Wren has the worst after sales service. AVOID at best.
Had a very bad experience with them.

moneyistooshorttomention

Input on checking out Howdens (none of the others near me anyway):

- The assistant seems to be primed ready with a variety of excuses to use if the doors aren't up to scratch after being used for a while (of the "Ooh....the customer got the kitchen wet" variety). Err...hello...it's a kitchen....newsflash = there is water in a kitchen by definition. (That was with reference to a comment I made about those vinyl-wrapped/foil-wrapped doors I won't be having personally).

- They don't stock quartz worktops - of any description:eek:. Newsflash = it's 2017 now. Why not?

That's another one off the list then....

System

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

- They don't stock quartz worktops - of any description:eek:. Newsflash = it's 2017 now. Why not?

That's another one off the list then....

Howdens are a trade only supplier, most quartz worktops/solid surfaces are supplied and installed by specialist sub-contractors, even where consumer foucessed companies supply and fit, you will find that they all farm out this work to specialists and charge you a percentage markup - again you are getting hung up on things you don't understand, do your research and these things become obvious, every time you post about a kitchen supplier you seem more confused than the last time!