My rights with an electronic warranty?

Lynne_H

I bought a very expensive TV last April (£3500) from John Lewis. We watch the TV on demand and through our wifi. We have really good 50 MB wifi and have no problems with the wifi on other devices. The TV intermittently (but frequently) looses its connection with the wifi. We have to turn the router off and on and that usually solves the problem. We have had months when this problem doesn't happen but at the moment it's an every day occurrence.

I have now contacted John Lewis as I have a 5 year warranty (although still within the initial one year). They are sending out a subcontracted engineer to look at it. However, the subcontracted company has told me they will replace some hardware and if that doesn't fix it I'm on my own. I have done a factory reset which didnt solve the problem. I'm really worried they will blame the wifi when I think the issue is with the tv software or firmware on the tv not talking to the router properly.

What are my rights? If I'm in the 1st year of warranty with john lewis can I just request a full refund and return the item? At this stage I just want my money back. I am so upset to have spent so much and have a product that doesn't work. An ethernet cable wouldn't work well in our set up because we'd have to trunk it round half the house.

Any advice appreciated!

BoGoF

No, you can't request a full refund.

Given it's over 6 months old the onus is on you to show an inhererent fault normally by way of engineer report. If you get that retailer can choose remedy - repair, replace or refund. Any refund can be reduced to reflect the product usage.

davidmcn

Have you tried connecting it to a different wifi device?

mattyprice4004

Use your mobile phone as an internet hotspot, and see if the same thing happens.
This will pinpoint if it’s an issue with your router or your TV.

No, you can’t just immediately demand a refund for a minor fault - after 6 months it’s down to you to prove the fault is inherent, and ringing them up and saying ‘it doesn’t work, I want a refund’ isn’t proof.

Try the above and let us know how you get on.

DoaM

Are you 100% sure you don't get the same issues with your other WiFi devices? (I suspect you don't use them as intensively as the TV, and perhaps they recover from WiFi issues more gracefully).

Also, does your WiFi router support 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies? If yes, have you ensured that the SSID for each is named differently or do you have them linked to the same SSID? (Linked SSID can cause issues with some devices).

neilmcl

Have you tried connecting via ethernet, and with the use of powerline adapters if the router is too far away?

DoaM

neilmcl wrote: »

Have you tried connecting via ethernet, and with the use of powerline adapters if the router is too far away?

Slightly off-topic ... I have a BT Youview box for the "smart" functionality for my TV. When I tried connecting via Powerline adaptors the Netflix app would often stall at 25% loading. When I switched to using a WiFi adaptor there was no issues. That was quite a while ago now, so perhaps the issue is now resolved as there have been software updates on the box since then, but I've not tried going back.

HogMan

We have also have a BT Youview box and I seem to recall when the Netflix app was first rolled out it was hit and miss.
We have the Youview box, TV and Apple TV all connected via an ethernet switch to a Powerline adaptor and works pretty much without issue,

Aylesbury_Duck

As advised earlier, try a powerline adaptor. Our smart TV was notoriously laggy on wifi but runs perfectly on ethernet cable. Don't use multi-plugs, plug the powerline adaptors directly into the sockets, preferably on the same ring main so the signal doesn't have to go back to the main fuse board.

And no, you aren't entitled to a full refund.

neilmcl

DoaM wrote: »

Slightly off-topic ... I have a BT Youview box for the "smart" functionality for my TV. When I tried connecting via Powerline adaptors the Netflix app would often stall at 25% loading. When I switched to using a WiFi adaptor there was no issues. That was quite a while ago now, so perhaps the issue is now resolved as there have been software updates on the box since then, but I've not tried going back.

Some adapters have been known to have issues. I have some old Trendnet ones that would occasionally lose connection.

DoaM

The adaptors didn't lose connection ... other apps on the same box worked fine. It was a Netflix app issue which was sensitive to the type of signal jitter (for want of a better expression) inherent with powerline adaptors.

Apologies to the OP for the off-topic.