Dishwasher seal gone after less than two years?

Badgergal

Hi all,

In June 2005 I bought a mini dishwasher. This morning I discovered it is leaking very badly from the bottom corner near the door; on closer inspection the seal is gunky and appears to be coming away; I think it will need replacing.

Can anyone suggest what to do? From a consumer point of view I do feel that I have a right to expect a dishwasher to last longer than less than two years, is it worth ringing/emailing Comet where it came from (I know they are fairly bad customer service wise, from experience)?

I can't see that it would be worth paying for repairs myself, DW cost around £130. Is it possibly a job I could attempt myself if I get no joy?

Badgergal

I've emailed them quoting the Sale of Goods Act 1979 (as it seems I have up to six years to claim) but Comet are not budging - they want £75 plus parts to fix it. This is the reply I received:

"I was very concerned to learn of the problems that you have experienced regarding your faulty dishwasher. Please let me say how sorry I am and thank you for taking the time to get in touch.

We take great pride in the products that we sell and our after-sales service. We want our customers to be completely happy with the items they buy from us, hence all the products we sell are covered by a manufacturers’ guarantee. The length of the guarantee is usually sufficient for any technical problems with the product to materialise.

Comet will not charge you for repairs carried out under the guarantee period. However, if the manufacturers’ guarantee or extended warranty on your product has expired, repairs are chargeable. Your appliance has been working for 22 months, as this is the case we feel that it was of satisfactory quality when you purchased it and therefore will not repair it free of charge.

If you are unhappy with this, you will need to pay for the repairs, complete a claim form from our service department and return it to the service manager, giving your reasons why you feel you should not pay for the repair. The service manager will then make a decision based on the engineer’s assessment of the problem. A member of our service team will then contact you to inform you of the manager’s decision. We cannot guarantee that we will be able to give you a refund before the item has been repaired. When a claim form is received I can promise that a fair judgement will be made. This will depend on the fault, the age of the product and the parts needed to repair it.

I appreciate that this is not the response you are looking for and I apologise that I am unable to assist you any further in this matter."

I would really, really appreciate any advice anyone might have as I don't want to risk paying the money and then not getting it back. The repairs may end up costing what the DW is worth! I have very little spare cash at the moment and am struggling to finish off this loan in my sig, so I'm loathe to just 'stick it on the CC'.

Any help or suggestions what to do would be really appreciated.

Thanks

Avoriaz

Reply to them along the lines of

I don’t think 22 months is a satisfactory life for a dishwasher costing £130 and I doubt if Trading Standards and the County Court will either.

I would prefer to settle this matter without resort to legal action but, unless you respond by return to my satisfaction, I will ask Trading Standards to investigate and I will also issue proceedings against you in the County Court.

I am quite familiar with the Sales of Goods Act and the County Court Small Claims procedure and I am confident that I will win my case.

Please don’t think that you can bully me into paying for repairs or accepting that 22 months is a reasonable life for an expensive item of kitchen equipment.

This issue will not go away so please act as a reasonable trader should and deal with this matter properly.

I will allow you 7 days to respond before taking the matter further.

liney

What happened? I have a similar problem with my machine packing up after 26 months. I will also need to deal with Comet.

deanos

If the seal is gunky then it cant have been cleaned regualy which has made the seal fail, and that is your responsability.

Not sure you would be able to get anything from Comet if it was your fault, im sure a seal will only be a few quid anyway and i doubt a judge would go in your favour.

liney

Mine isnt the seal. It has stopped heating water and drying the dishes, but it is just gone 2 years old (just sorted through my bank statements to get the proof of purchase)

I am a wimp when it comes to complaining, but i really think the machine should last more than 2 years surely?!

kwatt

Sorry folks but you are being unreasonable here.

You are expecting an incredibly low price product to last, without fault for how long exactly? Considering also that, unlike a car for example, no servicing has been done and no assessment of the cost to make good been made.

This sort of attitude really makes me laugh as, if I didn't laugh, I'd be in tears at what people expect.

Let me explain a little, your machine is just under two years old, it came with a one year warranty and cost £130 in this instance. So it's cost about £70 per year to own or, 20 pence a day over two years and you think that this is poor value or quality? I'd love to know how you work that out, I think it's dirt cheap.

You also had the option to buy a better product with a two year warranty, five year warranty or even a ten year warranty but the price you paid would have reflected that.

On top of which you had the option of extended warranty, which I don't advocate as such but it is still there as an option.

Or you pays your money and takes your chance as you have done.

UK law states that you have recourse for up to six years, that is true, but it clearly does not state that the goods have to be fault free for six years as that would be totally unreasonable. In fact this is well explained on the RETRA website with the following:

RETRA wrote:

Complaints can be brought to court up to six years after a sale in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (and five years after the time of the discovery of the problem in Scotland). After that time, the Limitation Act 1980 generally prevents court cases being brought.

This does not mean that goods have to last six years or they should not go wrong during this period; it is not a durability requirement.

A consumer could bring a case against a retailer, alleging non-conformity of contract, for up to six years after the sale. However, he would find a court unsympathetic in the latter years for low cost items that it was reasonable to expect to last only a short period (a £15 toaster might not last many years but a £200 one should) or for consumables like batteries and bulbs which have a specified limited lifespan.

Similarly, when a remote control stops because a battery has come to the end of its life – assuming it had lasted a reasonable time - there are no grounds for complaint that the remote control is not conforming to contract.

The Two-Year Guarantee Myth, the Regulations do not provide a two-year guarantee.

What we find is that people go out and buy low cost machines looking for the best price that they can get and are totally oblivious to the consequences of that way of thinking until there is a problem. Then we get all this misquoted malarky about consumer rights and such.

I am not saying for one minute that your rights shouldn't be respected or that any retailer should break the law as it stands, I think that the current legislation is more than fair to consumers. But, I do think that customer expectations for what they are willing to pay for a product in a great many cases are way out of proportion and totally unrealistic.

This is one such occasion as, on a £130 dishwasher to expect it to be a quality item is unrealistic when you consider that most mid-market machines start at almost twice that price. For a dishwasher of good quality you are looking at in excess of four times that price and I'm afraid that old caveat applies, "you get what you pay for".

K.

liney

My machine was not far off £300, which was average price 2 years ago. I have emailed trading standards to see where i stand.

liney

Trading standards say things that would be normal wear and tear cannot be claimed against, however my duff element after 2 years would suggest that it was faulty or not fit for purpose when i bought the item.

They have very kindly given me a standard letter to send and request it be fixed/replaced at their expense.