Faulty item, replacement on guarantee but do I have to pay engineers time?

Counting_Pennies_2

I wonder if anyone can help.

I have an expensive piece of machinery in my property, something wasn't working on it when I purchased the property so I paid a lot of money for a replacement piece to it, along with many other things that needed to be carried out to make the machine work properly, I paid for the engineers time to fit it along with other jobs carried out, it was an hourly rate.

This one item does not work, so I arranged a replacement under the warranty.

The engineer turned up completed the replacement with a new item, however his office have asked me to sign a piece of paper to say I will pay for the engineers time of 15 minutes to fit it.

I watched him do it, he pulled out the old piece, the slid in the new piece, it took seconds.

I was agast they want me to pay £30 for his time.

I have written on the work sheet that at no point during the telephone conversation to replace the broken item was I informed I had to pay for the engineers time. I had already paid to have it put in when the old one was replaced, and I will not be paying.

However it got me thinking, am I within my rights to do this, or do I have to pay for the time of the engineer?

This is a regional franchise of a well known national company. It is an expensive item and I have probably paid £1000 to this company in the last two years getting the item to optimum performance, so I do feel rather cheesed off at this request for yet more money.

Many thanks for your views

wealdroam

Put simply... if the warranty says that you have to pay for fitting parts, then that is what you have to do.

A warranty is in addition to your statutory rights, and as such there can be terms like that in them.

Without knowing what this 'expensive piece of machinery' is, nor whether this is a business to business arrangement or not, it is difficult to offer further opinions.

Have you actually signed the paper that says you will pay?

vaio

be easier with more details but generally....

If you buy a part and then pay an engineer to fit it and it fails under SoG then you need to pay the engineer again but you can recover any consequential costs from the retailer.

If you buy a part and then pay an engineer to fit it and it fails under warranty then you are bound by whatever the warranty terms say, might be parts only or might be parts & labour..

If you pay an engineer to supply & fit a new part which then fails under SoG then the engineer needs to fix it at no cost to you.

If you pay an engineer to supply & fit a new part which then fails under warranty then again you are bound by whatever the warranty terms say, might be parts only or might be parts & labour.

Note that any warranty terms can’t reduce your SoG rights, reading the OP it sounds like the part failed immediately or shortly after installation in which case it should be a SoG issue rather than warranty.

Counting_Pennies_2

Thanks all it is an Aga. The part was an aga made item fitted by an Aga specialist employed by the Aga shop. So all very expensive and branded by them. There remit was to supply and fit the item.

When the engineer came out to service the beast he asked if everything was working and I said that the item they fitted was a real pain it didn't help me out at all. He looked at it said it was broken and would get it replaced under the warranty. The shop then phoned up and said they would pop out and put a new one in. At no point did they say I would have to pay for the engineers time, if I had known I wouldn't have gone ahead with its warranty replacement

Over the last year they have had a huge amount of money out of me while I got the beast up to their standard and paid their huge bills and feel they should be flexible on this.

wealdroam

Counting_Pennies wrote: »

Over the last year they have had a huge amount of money out of me while I got the beast up to their standard and paid their huge bills and feel they should be flexible on this.

I can easily understand you feeling like that, but frankly, that is nothing to do with consumer rights... just poor customer service.