Expensive hairdryer breaks after warranty period

TrixA

I'm now drafting a polite letter to the company letting them know that I'll be seeking an independent engineer's report and would expect them to provide remedy if the fault is shown to be an inherent one. In the event that they simply ignore the letter, what are my options?

wealdroam

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/how-to-complain

SuperHan

TrixA wrote: »

I'm now drafting a polite letter to the company letting them know that I'll be seeking an independent engineer's report and would expect them to provide remedy if the fault is shown to be an inherent one. In the event that they simply ignore the letter, what are my options?

Don't bother. Just get the report. It's empty words asking for goodwill up until that point, and it seems you've already pursued that. If you would rather do that, by all means do, but then just get the report anyway if they don't respond.

They don't have to do ANYTHING (including reply to you, but that is bad practice) until you present them with a proven inherent fault.

Then if they don't do anything, send them a letter before action and threaten/take them to small claims court.

What the customer service guy is technically right, in your situation, without the report. It just omits the next step for you to take.

TrixA

After making some inquiries, I've concluded that it makes no sense to try and get an engineer's report. It appears there are very few companies who will repair hairdryers, presumably because it's seldom economic to do so. There are a couple of companies that specialise in brands used by professional hairdressers (which mine happens to be) but they're nowhere near where I live and the appliance would be expensive to post - if I was going to go to that trouble I might as well get it repaired at the same time.

Happily I did manage to find a local social enterprise that repairs small appliances to avoid them going to landfill. They're going to see if they can fix it but it's going to take several weeks due to backlogs. This means I've had to buy a new (cheap!) hairdryer to tide me over.

I'm still feeling pretty dissatisfied with the response of the company that sold me the hairdryer and wondering if there's anything else I can do. I'm confident that any reasonable person would expect an appliance at this price and of this quality, advertised with the particular description ("legendary reliability") to last longer than 6 months under light domestic use. Like I said, this is a model supposedly used by professional hairdressers, who would be using it multiple times a day. Is there any point in reporting them to trading standards or similar? As a minimum I think they should be making it clear in their advertising what the warranty period is for the product and what their policy is on repairs outside the warranty period. I've checked, and I can't find this info anywhere on their website. In the absence of information to the contrary, "legendary reliability" creates an expectation of a long-term guarantee, certainly against mechanical faults like the one I've experienced.

stevemLS

Trixa - that seems like a reasoned and proportionate response to me.

I know nothing about hairdryers (am virtually bald lol) but I do know our system of justice would collapse tomorrow if everyone who was urged to do so on here issued proceedings.

The worst one I've seen recently was for £2.99 I think.

ThumbRemote

stevemLS wrote: »

The worst one I've seen recently was for £2.99 I think.

Where was that?

Chelsea123

Hi TrixA

Can you let me know what site you used? I am currently in the exact same situation with mine. I purchased this 7 months ago and the warranty was only for 6 months which I never expected due to the claims that this hairdryer can be used for 2000+ hours.

Mine is dangerously faulty - it sounded like a garden strimmer this morning and there were flashes of light where the speed/heat settings are, the whole hairdryer was vibrating I thought it was going to explode!

I'm so angry at how they can get away with this behavior!

AngryPlum

Rather late than never i guess. i saw the last post in this thread was a year ago and i'm quite sure the OP has already taken some action to resolve the real issue, ie. being without a dryer that fulfills her specific requirements.

but i would just like to post this, in case someone else happened upon this thread with similar symptoms.

Dear OP. as you explained in an earlier post you mostly used the dryer in the low speed mode, and most likely on the high heat setting at the same time. this causes all the current (or energy) to flow through a schottky diode (not important for you to understand what it is or how it works, but it effectively (as well as lets call it "cost effectively") halves the power. resulting in less air and less heat... or a low setting). that component of yours has fused. and even though it is rather tricky to get out, soldering and what not... you can buy a new one for less than a dollar or pound depending on where you reside. i believe i paid R16.00 (south african rand or ZAR on XE.com) for a replacement unit and it took me less that 20 minutes to swap them out.

this all of course means nothing if you dont still have the broken dryer in question.

usefulmale

Stick with the cheap hairdryers. You will get a years guarantee on each one and last I heard, the flow of hot air from a cheap dryer is just as good at drying your hair as the flow from an expensive one.