Advice on an out-of-warranty kitchen hob!

Paul_O_4

Hi

Last January (2011) I had a new kitchen installed which cost 1 arm and 2 legs.

Part of this install was the Hotpoint CIO-642 hob which cost a not-insignificant £500.

Fast forward to today and the thing is knackered. It blew the fuse in the house and is now shouting "F19" at me on the display of the two rings which we have used perhaps two or three times in this entire time.

I called Homebase (the installer) who directed me to Hotpoint. Hotpoint have provided me with a 50/50 gamble. I can either...

1) I can pay them £120 for an engineer callout who will come and repair it. If he can't repair it, I pay them £50 instead and then I've got to buy a new hob from somewhere.

or

2) I can pay them £180 and the engineer will come and fix it, or replace it if it is beyond repair.

Is there any legal protection that I can throw at them which says that a barely used (perhaps two or three times a week for an hour), 18 month old £500 appliance should last a damn site longer than that without my having to pay them an additional 1/3 of its value??!!!!!

The hob came with a 12 month warranty and additional 4 year parts-only warranty for reference.

Help!! :mad:


I originally posted this in Citizens advice (wrong place it would appear), so have copied to this forum. Hope thats ok!

Ectophile

Two thoughts.

1. Under the Sale of Goods Act, you can potentially claim for up to 6 years if a product is faulty. However, after 6 months then it's up to you to prove that the product was faulty (and not just worn out through age or broken by you). That could mean you having to get an independent expert to examine it. A claim under the SoGA is against the retailer, not the manufacturer.

2. You say you've got a 4 year parts warranty. How can the engineer not be able to fix the hob, if they can replace any faulty parts for free under the warranty? It's worth reading the warranty wording carefully, but I would be insisting that they should be replacing everything that's faulty, with you only paying the engineer's call out fee. Edit: Unless it's one of those warranties that excludes any part that is ever likely to go wrong.