Extended Guarentees

thefarside

I am looking at buying myself a shiny new Philips HDTV (37pf9731d). With this going to be an expensive purchase, I thought I would purchase a guarentee.

My question is; Do I have to purchase this from the same retailer, or can you for example purchase one cheaper elsewhere?

JasonLVC

If you buy from John Lewis they usually throw in a free five year guarantee and price match - but of no use if they don't stock your model. You could also barter with the shop seller to get it for free, but depends upon how you feel about bartering, etc.

Norwich Union (and a few others insurance companies) offer white goods insurance. I have it, costs £12 per month and covers all white goods such as washer/dryer, cooker, TV including flat panals/LCD/Plasma, hifi, DVD, etc. They'll either repair and/or replace depending upon age.

As the likes of Comet/Dixons can charge upto £350 for a warranty to cover your TV alone, the Norwich union policy is better as it might be dearer over the five years (£500) but will cover ALL your electrical stuff. Depends if you've got a lot of other gear. Trust that helps.

You don;t have to buy the sellers warranty as ultimately the TV will have one year mandatory anyway, so you'd only be actually paying for 4 years. So either get the Norwich Union type policy in year 2 after normal warranty expires or seek an independant warranty provider instead.

pinkgem

i never ever buy extended warrantys on anything, i also don't have mobile phone insurance and don't have breakdown cover.

if i did have extended warranty on all my electrical items it would cost hundreds of pounds in total, and all "just incase" something breaks.

if one of my electrical items do break outside of the 12 month manufacturers guarantee then i will simply pay to repair or replace it and probably save myself hundreds of pounds too by not having paid for warranty on everything else.

even better is that i have never had an electrical item break outside of its initial 12 months manufacturers warranty so i have already saved hundreds of pounds by not taking extra warranty on anything

i have had numerous mobile phones for over 10 years now and have never lost any of them or had any stolen. imagine if i had paid say £5 a month for the last 10 years for mobile phone insurance, i would be £600 out of pocket! but the £600 i have saved by not taking out extra insurance would more than cover the cost of a new high end mobile phone if i did lose mine or it got stolen.

instead of taking out extended warranties on all your electrical items, every time you buy something new, if you would normally pay for an extended warranty, pay the cost of the extended warranty into a savings account instead. this should amount to a few hundred pounds (perhaps even a thousand or so) over a few years and should be enough to cover a lot of repairs of replacements. if nothing breaks after the 3-5 years that extended warranties usually run for then you've got a few hundred pounds plus interest in a savings account to spend as you wish

kels12

Under the Sales of Goods Act 1979 (as amended) items should be fit for purpose or of reasonable quality for a period of approximately 6 years from purchase. Therefore if your TV breaks in this time you are covered under the law for this to be repaired or replaced.

Have a good read of this site - http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk/ as this will explain your rights.

It really gets my goat when people are sold these extended guarantees and they don't realise that the law covers them for free

HTH


Kelsey