Hotpoint urgent tumble dryer recall

cheshire_bird

I duly registered as my dryer is an affected model. I have now received an email stating that my repair will take place in DECEMBER. Given that time frame would make my dryer 8 years old I thought I'd take the option of getting one of the reduced priced dryers on offer. ( tho I'm not convinced that I should make any form of financial contribution for a recalled product, no matter the age )
Anyway, I clicked the link on the email only to find the replacement is out of stock !
So, no replacement available and no repair for 10 months.
I think that's what we use to call Hobson's choice. No choice at all !
Could hotpoint/whirlpool be any worse at remedying this situation ?

Zandoni

wealdroam wrote: »

I guess they haven't been in touch with you yet.

Your informant LongTallKatie has already told us:


Since LTK posted that you have been repeating something similar.

Actually I said it in post 392 and your LTK quote is 457, please check your facts before posting.

Poppie68

cheshire_bird wrote: »

I duly registered as my dryer is an affected model. I have now received an email stating that my repair will take place in DECEMBER. Given that time frame would make my dryer 8 years old I thought I'd take the option of getting one of the reduced priced dryers on offer. ( tho I'm not convinced that I should make any form of financial contribution for a recalled product, no matter the age )
Anyway, I clicked the link on the email only to find the replacement is out of stock !
So, no replacement available and no repair for 10 months.
I think that's what we use to call Hobson's choice. No choice at all !
Could hotpoint/whirlpool be any worse at remedying this situation ?

Your 8 year old dryer has now got very limited life left so the offer of a very cheap replacement is a bargain.....I'm sure they will have more in stock soon, so keep trying, if not you can continue using the dryer you have, for 8 years it's not burnt your house down so the chances of it burning due to the defect are less than if it suddenly starts a fire through age.

ALIBOBSY

I don't know my purchase date, but its at least 4 yrs ago or so. Because of this couldn't register online.

Ended up complaining via the facebook page and after some toing and froing asked for my complaint to be passed higher.

They rang me and a new dryer is on its way to be delivered on Monday which is good, but after the poster on here saying she was sent another recalled machine I am hoping for either green stickers or a newer uneffected model. Will have to see.

Have spoken to an ex hotpoint engineer who says they was never any indication to them about a specific design problem and he is adamant that the fires they saw nearly always had links to not enough ventilation. I.E dryer pushed back against the wall or vents twisted or blocked. He says he wouldn't leave any dryer unattended and always pull all brands as far forward under the worktop as you can-he prefers them to be open as in a garage or simular.
He believes the fault to make them more likely to set on fire, but that to get to the temps inside to ignite the lack of ventilation is also an issue.

Obviously thats just his opinion and he can't know exactly what was going on at higher levels in the company, but its worth taking on the ventilation advice whatever brand of dryer you have tbh.

Ali x

Zandoni

ALIBOBSY wrote: »

I don't know my purchase date, but its at least 4 yrs ago or so. Because of this couldn't register online.

Ended up complaining via the facebook page and after some toing and froing asked for my complaint to be passed higher.

They rang me and a new dryer is on its way to be delivered on Monday which is good, but after the poster on here saying she was sent another recalled machine I am hoping for either green stickers or a newer uneffected model. Will have to see.

Have spoken to an ex hotpoint engineer who says they was never any indication to them about a specific design problem and he is adamant that the fires they saw nearly always had links to not enough ventilation. I.E dryer pushed back against the wall or vents twisted or blocked. He says he wouldn't leave any dryer unattended and always pull all brands as far forward under the worktop as you can-he prefers them to be open as in a garage or simular.
He believes the fault to make them more likely to set on fire, but that to get to the temps inside to ignite the lack of ventilation is also an issue.

Obviously thats just his opinion and he can't know exactly what was going on at higher levels in the company, but its worth taking on the ventilation advice whatever brand of dryer you have tbh.

Ali x

The ventilation tips are certainly worth noting, thanks.

AJXX

cheshire_bird wrote: »

I duly registered as my dryer is an affected model. I have now received an email stating that my repair will take place in DECEMBER. Given that time frame would make my dryer 8 years old I thought I'd take the option of getting one of the reduced priced dryers on offer. ( tho I'm not convinced that I should make any form of financial contribution for a recalled product, no matter the age )
Anyway, I clicked the link on the email only to find the replacement is out of stock !
So, no replacement available and no repair for 10 months.
I think that's what we use to call Hobson's choice. No choice at all !
Could hotpoint/whirlpool be any worse at remedying this situation ?

Well yes, they could force you to wait for a repair and not offer replacement dryers at all - after all, they don't have to offer replacement dryers.

They could stop hiring engineers and push your repair back 2 years if they wanted to.

December is a long time away but you have to account for the fact there are thousands if not hundreds of thousands who are in front of you waiting for a repair - if you think about it logically, it doesn't seem that bad.

To be fair it's likely they have x units reserved for ordering via the website which have run out of stock over the weekend or something. I'm sure if you give it a few days they'll be available again.

Your 7 year old dryer is well outside of any SOGA period anyway, if it wasn't for the safety issue you'd likely be buying a new dryer within a couple of years for at least two or three times the cost of Hotpoints replacement offer.

unholyangel

Zandoni wrote: »

I do honestly believe they continued to produce knowing there was an increased chance of fire.
I’d suggest it was brought to their attention years ago but they decided it would be cheaper to continue rather than going through the cost of recall. I’d also suggest they didn’t modify them earlier in production as that would be an admission that there was a fault.


This is Whirlpool’s version of events and I doubt very much that it was discovered then. I’d suggest Hotpoint were fully aware and it was all factored into the deal.
The Daily Mirror for one is trying very hard to find out when Hotpoint knew about the problem but they are refusing to say.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/after-tumble-dryer-fires-what-7348010

They ignored safety reports in 2013 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/shopping-and-consumer-news/12014824/Tumble-dryer-manufacturer-ignored-safety-warnings-over-fire-risk.html

So you think that rather than be liable to repair (for example) 300,000 machines,, they thought it better to keep selling them as is and be liable for 8 million machines plus potential liability for death/property damage? You realise they could have changed the design on the fly and not issued a recall if they knew about it and were trying to avoid being liable?

Also, the same "reports" you're referring to state that they don't know hotpoints market share and the 22% being quoted is their present market share - not their market share of machines sold during 2004 and 2015. Also, the reports don't distinguish why the fire happened. To get an accurate idea of how "dangerous" these machines are compared to others, you need to look at how many fires have happened due to this particular issue over their market share for the same time period and compare it against fires in that appliance generally.

But really what you're posting just proves what I've been saying from my first post here - that all electrical appliances carry a risk with them and that even with the increased risk, its still only marginally higher than machines without that issue.

I think the very fact we have people on here who have used these supposed dangerous machines for 8 years goes some way towards proving that they're not the assured death trap that they're being made out to be.

unholyangel

garryboy wrote: »

Can't believe whats happened with mines.

I purchased a idc85 from very in august 2015. Immediately registered it with indesit when recall was announced. Got an email in Jan to say it would be may before modification could be done.

As it was only 5 months old i contacted indesit and they arranged for a brand new dryer to be delivered free of charge.

Well the new condenser dryer arrived on Friday direct from indesit and you guessed it.

It's also a recalled machine. No green dots anywhere on the machine. I called the recall helpline and they have confirmed the same but were unable to help any further.

So il need to sit tight again till they get back to me.

Im sure I'm not the only one who had received another recalled dryer. So if you do get a new one from them be sure to check the serial number.

I will update once I've heard from indesit.

Is it possible they have perhaps modified the stock they have already? So although its a model affected by the recall, its already had the fix applied?

AJXX

unholyangel wrote: »

I think the very fact we have people on here who have used these supposed dangerous machines for 8 years goes some way towards proving that they're not the assured death trap that they're being made out to be.

Didn't someone have one that was pushing 10 years old? I completely agree with you 100% in any case.

Zandoni

unholyangel wrote: »

So you think that rather than be liable to repair (for example) 300,000 machines,, they thought it better to keep selling them as is and be liable for 8 million machines plus potential liability for death/property damage? You realise they could have changed the design on the fly and not issued a recall if they knew about it and were trying to avoid being liable?

Also, the same "reports" you're referring to state that they don't know hotpoints market share and the 22% being quoted is their present market share - not their market share of machines sold during 2004 and 2015. Also, the reports don't distinguish why the fire happened. To get an accurate idea of how "dangerous" these machines are compared to others, you need to look at how many fires have happened due to this particular issue over their market share for the same time period and compare it against fires in that appliance generally.

But really what you're posting just proves what I've been saying from my first post here - that all electrical appliances carry a risk with them and that even with the increased risk, its still only marginally higher than machines without that issue.

I think the very fact we have people on here who have used these supposed dangerous machines for 8 years goes some way towards proving that they're not the assured death trap that they're being made out to be.

I haven't changed my mind at all I'm convinced they knew a good number of years ago and they played the odds. Ford done a similar thing years ago with the Mustang's fuel tank.

I don't see how any reasonable person can believe that Hotpoint engineers wouldn't inspect most of the burnt out machines.

I do agree that all electrcal appliances carry a risk of fire, but your odds are worse if you have a Hotpoint.

To say that some people on here have machines that are over 8 years old goes some way to proving they are not dangerous is a bit laughable with the sort of odds we are talking about. Yes the odds are slim but there's more chance than there should be.