Rusted Banham Locks

McDaniel

Hi there,

My wife and I purchased four Banhams locks for our new house in 2011 (our property has an additional basement front door hence two locks per door).
We have recently noticed that the strike plates and collars are rusting, especially where the satin chrome finish has come off on the strike plate (this has occurred from normal usage alone, which I dont think should haved happened!)

I contacted Banhams and supplied a photo of one of the rusting locks. The reply stated that as the lock was outside of their 1 year guarantee they couldn't replace the lock and that it must be an isolated one off incident as they'd never encountered this issue before.

So I wrote back to say that actually, all four locks of the locks we purchased were not only badly scratched up through normal usage, but where they had been scratched and the protective coating worn off rust had started to appear (currently there is rust on 3 out of the 4 locks we bought from them. I suggested that seeing as this was happening to more than one lock perhaps it was a faulty batch or a problem with the protective coating.

In their subsequent reply they implied that I used an inappropriate abrasive cleaning product which has damaged the locks (not true) and state that if I had contacted them within a year they could have taken action, but as we are outside of the guarantee they cannot replace the locks, and have offered to supply me with just one collar (essentially just a metal ring- and not the only part of the locks displaying rust) to be fitted at my cost.

I was always under the impression that Banham locks were at the top end of the line, and I'm surprised not only by the obvious lack of quality but by their hard-nosed lack of after sale customer care (especially concerning a set of obviously defective products).

I understand that the locks only have a 1 year guarantee period and that we are outside of that, but are there measures that I can take, for example using the sale of goods act, as I'm sure these locks are not fit for purpose. The scratching/removal of the protective film did start happening within the guarantee period but the rust came after. Unfortunately I did not act on it at the time, and obviously would have done if I'd realised it would then develop into rust.

Any comments or thoughts regarding this issue would be greatly appreciated, and as a first time poster I apologise in advance for any newbie errors I've made!

vaio

any sale of good rights would be against the retailer you bought them from rather than the manufacturer.

McDaniel

Hi Vaio,
In this case the retailer is the manufacturer as we purchased them directly from Banhams.
Thanks

vaio

in that case I'd be arguing that warranty is irrelevant and the goods should have lasted longer than they have to qualify as "reasonably durable" as required by sale of goods. More so given the high quality (& consequent price) that Banhams portray & charge