Hotpoint urgent tumble dryer recall

nic_santorini

we phoned 6 different numbers given to us by hotpoint last week. They all said the same thing.

Free replacements for those that have been on fire or can not be repaired and others get £59 for a non-condenser replacement and £99 for a condenser replacement. They won't budge. I have emailed the CEO, and I got a call within 2 days to arrange a repair - don't know if these two are linked my estimated date was May, as I registered my appliance on 25th November.

Zandoni

AJXX wrote: »

Doesn't this somewhat tie in to our discussion above though?

Receiving some reports of machines causing fires and "knowing there is a problem" are two entirely different things.

If you manufacture electrical appliances you should take a single fire from your products seriously. If they don't investigate and fix the problem they are incompetent. They must of had many reports and they didn't act on them.

powerful_Rogue

Zandoni wrote: »

Do you honestly hand on heart believe they made these machines for 11 years without knowing they had a problem?

Im not the one stating it as fact. If you can't substantiate your allegation, then its not a fact, its an opinion.

AJXX

Zandoni wrote: »

If you manufacture electrical appliances you should take a single fire from your products seriously. If they don't investigate and fix the problem they are incompetent. They must of had many reports and they didn't act on them.

Perhaps they where trying to gather facts and relevant information before issuing a safety notice/recall? Remember, according to the figures we have now the potential for any fire is incredibly low and less than 1% of all machines sold - if we go back say 9 years, the figures are even lower!

It's a bit unfair to say that they didn't take it seriously - we don't know what they where doing internally... You're also assuming that every single fire was reported to Hotpoint and at that you're assuming that Hotpoint got to inspect the machine to find the cause - both of these seem unlikely.

They clearly have investigated and are now attempting to fix the potential problem.

I still don't see how you have the relevant knowledge or experience to deem them "incompetent" so I think we will have to agree to disagree. At the same time I don't think it's appropriate for some people on here to cry out that they're not doing everything they can (for the same reasons I've given above).

Unless Hotpoint is somehow investigated/scrutinised by a 3rd party we will never really know how they handled this and if they did the right thing or not given what (little) information they had. You and a few other members have what I'd say is a pretty simplistic view of things and are overlooking how complex/detailed something like this actually is to implement.

nic_santorini wrote: »

we phoned 6 different numbers given to us by hotpoint last week. They all said the same thing.

Free replacements for those that have been on fire or can not be repaired and others get £59 for a non-condenser replacement and £99 for a condenser replacement. They won't budge. I have emailed the CEO, and I got a call within 2 days to arrange a repair - don't know if these two are linked my estimated date was May, as I registered my appliance on 25th November.

May isn't that far off and tbh I've seen people who registered in November being given repair dates as far as August etc... So it seems like you've been given a good repair date.

I'm not sure what you mean by "won't budge" do you mean because they've said no to a free replacement? Do you mean to say that as a result of your email to the CEO you've been given a repair date earlier than May?

Zandoni

AJXX wrote: »

Perhaps they where trying to gather facts and relevant information before issuing a safety notice/recall? Remember, according to the figures we have now the potential for any fire is incredibly low and less than 1% of all machines sold - if we go back say 9 years, the figures are even lower!

It's a bit unfair to say that they didn't take it seriously - we don't know what they where doing internally... You're also assuming that every single fire was reported to Hotpoint and at that you're assuming that Hotpoint got to inspect the machine to find the cause - both of these seem unlikely.

They clearly have investigated and are now attempting to fix the potential problem.

I still don't see how you have the relevant knowledge or experience to deem them "incompetent" so I think we will have to agree to disagree. At the same time I don't think it's appropriate for some people on here to cry out that they're not doing everything they can (for the same reasons I've given above).

Unless Hotpoint is somehow investigated/scrutinised by a 3rd party we will never really know how they handled this and if they did the right thing or not given what (little) information they had. You and a few other members have what I'd say is a pretty simplistic view of things and are overlooking how complex/detailed something like this actually is to implement.



May isn't that far off and tbh I've seen people who registered in November being given repair dates as far as August etc... So it seems like you've been given a good repair date.

I'm not sure what you mean by "won't budge" do you mean because they've said no to a free replacement? Do you mean to say that as a result of your email to the CEO you've been given a repair date earlier than May?

I don't appreciate the simplistic view remark and I can't believe that anyone can believe they didn't know. We will have to agree to disagree because there's not going to be any mind changing here.

stokesley

Zandoni wrote: »

We will have to agree to disagree because there's not going to be any mind changing here.

Hear hear!


Is there nothing on telly?

powerful_Rogue

Zandoni wrote: »

I don't appreciate the simplistic view remark and I can't believe that anyone can believe they didn't know. We will have to agree to disagree because there's not going to be any mind changing here.

But I thought according to you it was a "fact" that they knew the machines they were producing for the last 11 years were faulty.

Supply me with the evidence of this "fact" and i'll agree with you 100%.

Zandoni

powerful_Rogue wrote: »

But I thought according to you it was a "fact" that they knew the machines they were producing for the last 11 years were faulty.

Supply me with the evidence of this "fact" and i'll agree with you 100%.

You supply me with evidence that they didn't know and I'll agree with you 100%

ThumbRemote

The information was in the public domain since a Which report in 2013.

On a 22% share of the market, Hotpoint accounted for 34% of fires - a fairly significant hike in the percentages.

It's possible that this is the first Hotpoint knew of it - although this would seem unlikely. If they didn't know, it raises significant questions over their competence: how can they have no way of tracking returns and fault causes?

It then took a further two years for them to actually admit the problem.

Sources:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/shopping-and-consumer-news/12014824/Tumble-dryer-manufacturer-ignored-safety-warnings-over-fire-risk.html
http://www.which.co.uk/news/2015/11/hotpoint-indesit-and-creda-fire-risk-tumble-dryers-safety-alert-424082/

AJXX

Zandoni wrote: »

You supply me with evidence that they didn't know and I'll agree with you 100%

You need to clarify exactly what you mean by "knowing about it" because thus far you've said two different things (potentially without realising it).

As I said earlier, there is a big difference between them knowing about a safety issue and carelessly doing nothing about it (which is what I think you where trying to imply earlier) or them receiving reports about fires from machines in general.

Receiving reports about fires there's no doubt about that - bearing in mind though, this does not necessarily mean the machine is faulty and it would take them potentially years to eventually learn this was a design issue like we know now.

So which is it,

Reports about fires or are you going the whole hog and simply saying Hotpoint both knew there was a design flaw and sold dodgy machines for 11 years? The latter of which is what I'd call a "simplistic" view as it completely overlooks and disregards what would likely be a significant period of investigation, research, engineer consultations, planning around re-calls, investigation of machines which have already caught fire etc...