Baxi Refusing Warranty Claim

homersimpson246

I had the misfortune to buy a property with a Baxi system boiler (a system boiler is the most simple boiler you can get with very few components in it). The boiler is 3 years old this month and the previous occupants didn't have is serviced as it was due just before they moved out.

The service is a couple of months overdue now as we hadn't realised it was due and the fan has failed leaving my wife and two small children with no heating or hotwater.

The fan (and the PCB that drives it) isn't part of the service other than checking that it works and therefore the service would have made no difference to the fan failure, however, they gleefully refused a warranty claim on the unit which still has four years of its warranty left.

If your in the market for a new boiler my advice would be look elsewhere because if my experience is anything to go by the boilers don't last and the company will try and wiggle out of any warranty claims that they can if you happen to miss a service date by a few months (or from their attitude on the phone I suspect even a few days!).

Also it took me an hour and half to get through to their helpdesk to be told my warranty wasn't valid, I can only assume this delay is due to the sheer volume of people having to ring up to try and book warranty repairs.

My Worcester Bosch combi in my old property on the other hand had 11 years of use without a single failure.

Just thought my experience might help anyone who is looking for a new boiler.

theonlywayisup

There is a board for praise & vents - and it seems this fits just there as you don't seem to be asking advice.

But for future note on warranties; the giver of the warranty is able to state the terms and those terms must be abided by for the warranty to be valid.  If Baxi requires a service each year then that is what they require and without it their warranty isn't valid. 

FreeBear

theonlywayisup said: But for future note on warranties; the giver of the warranty is able to state the terms and those terms must be abided by for the warranty to be valid.  If Baxi requires a service each year then that is what they require and without it their warranty isn't valid. 

Quite often, warranties & guarantees are not transferable, so Baxi could have refused on the grounds that you were not the original purchaser.

One should always check to see if warranties are transferable (sometimes, there is a fee to pay).

Section62

homersimpson246 said:

My Worcester Bosch combi in my old property on the other hand had 11 years of use without a single failure.

So you never got to find out what their warranty claims service was like, nor their attitude towards claims made following non-compliance with a contractural requirement?


All companies can be hit and miss when it comes to things like warranty claims. Often it can come down to the attitude of the individual handling the claim on the company side. Or both.  It shouldn't happen like this, but that is the reality of life and business.

homersimpson246

theonlywayisup said:

There is a board for praise & vents - and it seems this fits just there as you don't seem to be asking advice.

But for future note on warranties; the giver of the warranty is able to state the terms and those terms must be abided by for the warranty to be valid.  If Baxi requires a service each year then that is what they require and without it their warranty isn't valid. 

Indeed but this is the board where people who may be looking for a new boiler will see this the most.

Given the circumstances that we are only just a short amount of service and that we have only just moved in it would have been the mark of a honerable company to have done something to help us and perhaps offered to sell us a boiler service as part of the process to put us back on a good footing.  Instead their attitute was to cancel the remaining warranty and refuse any discussion on the matter. 

Not everyone is so organised as to have boiler services exactly on the dot of 12 months and it seems that even if you are a few days past 12 months their attitude would be the same from what they said to me.

homersimpson246

FreeBear said:

theonlywayisup said: But for future note on warranties; the giver of the warranty is able to state the terms and those terms must be abided by for the warranty to be valid.  If Baxi requires a service each year then that is what they require and without it their warranty isn't valid. 

Quite often, warranties & guarantees are not transferable, so Baxi could have refused on the grounds that you were not the original purchaser.

One should always check to see if warranties are transferable (sometimes, there is a fee to pay).

There weren't refusing on the basis that I wasn't the original purchaser, just that the service was a short time overdue.  If it hadn't been of course then me not being the original purchaser might have been their next attempt to wiggle out of it. 

As we didn't get that far we will never know.

homersimpson246

Section62 said:

homersimpson246 said:

My Worcester Bosch combi in my old property on the other hand had 11 years of use without a single failure.

So you never got to find out what their warranty claims service was like, nor their attitude towards claims made following non-compliance with a contractural requirement?


All companies can be hit and miss when it comes to things like warranty claims. Often it can come down to the attitude of the individual handling the claim on the company side. Or both.  It shouldn't happen like this, but that is the reality of life and business.

The point I was making was that the Worcester Bosch boiler which is far more complicated was able to operate without fault for a lot longer, to have a failure on a 3 year old boiler that has half the components is not a good sign of the reliability of the unit.

Yes it could have been the other way around and I may just be unlucky but the double whammy of an early failure and a totally unhelpful and uncompromising attitude for a minor slip on the servicing shows the sort of company they are.  If it hadn't been serviced for 12months then that would be fair enough but how many people have missed a boiler service by a few months or even don't religously have it done for the same date every year? 

theonlywayisup

homersimpson246 said:

theonlywayisup said:

There is a board for praise & vents - and it seems this fits just there as you don't seem to be asking advice.

But for future note on warranties; the giver of the warranty is able to state the terms and those terms must be abided by for the warranty to be valid.  If Baxi requires a service each year then that is what they require and without it their warranty isn't valid. 

Indeed but this is the board where people who may be looking for a new boiler will see this the most.

Given the circumstances that we are only just a short amount of service and that we have only just moved in it would have been the mark of a honerable company to have done something to help us and perhaps offered to sell us a boiler service as part of the process to put us back on a good footing.  Instead their attitute was to cancel the remaining warranty and refuse any discussion on the matter. 

Not everyone is so organised as to have boiler services exactly on the dot of 12 months and it seems that even if you are a few days past 12 months their attitude would be the same from what they said to me.

The T&C of a warranty are what they are and Baxi are very clear and they DO give grace, but I'm guessing you didn't fall into their grace period either. 

https://www.baxi.co.uk/trade/register-a-warranty

The boiler must be serviced each year in line with the manufacturer's instructions. The service must be carried out by an engineer registered with Gas Safe. The service can be done up to 60 days before or after the original anniversary of the boiler being installed without invalidating the warranty.

Section62

homersimpson246 said:

The point I was making was that the Worcester Bosch boiler which is far more complicated was able to operate without fault for a lot longer, to have a failure on a 3 year old boiler that has half the components is not a good sign of the reliability of the unit.

This is a false comparison.

Boilers made 11 years ago aren't the same as boilers made 3 years ago.

And in your case, the total number of components and the complexity of the boiler (e.g. system vs combi) is irrelevant.  Both makes/types of boiler have a fan, which can fail independently of all the other components - there isn't necessarily a relationship between component count and fan failure.

It could simply be the failure of an electronic component on the PCB for the fan - designed to wring an extra tiny fraction of a % efficiency out of the new boiler - and that electronic component could be made by exactly the same manufacturer to identical specifications as those fitted to 3 year old Worcester Bosch boilers.  There's so much of modern equipment that manufacturers 'buy-in' that traditional ideas about "brand quality" no longer apply.

But fan failures are a relatively common problem - they are electro-mechanical devices operating in challenging conditions, manufactured to a price point.  They fail. It can happen to anyone regardless of make/model/age.

homersimpson246 said:

Yes it could have been the other way around and I may just be unlucky but the double whammy of an early failure and a totally unhelpful and uncompromising attitude for a minor slip on the servicing shows the sort of company they are.  If it hadn't been serviced for 12months then that would be fair enough but how many people have missed a boiler service by a few months or even don't religously have it done for the same date every year? 

No, it just illustrates your personal experience in this case. One example doesn't prove anything.

As for "early failure" - what is the expected life for the fan in your make/model of boiler? Is it actually more than 3 years? Is the fan that just failed even the original one?

Another_Level

During the early days of covid19 and before out government issued guidelines for trades people visiting customer homes.
https://www.baxi.co.uk/about-us/news/baxi-coronavirus-customer-update

flexibility is mentioned   

lisyloo

I've had a Baxi warranty claim and they were pretty good.

No sympathy from me for not organising your warranty - it's not hard to operate either a virtual or paper diary.
A few months is a LOT and it's one of the things I'd expect your conveyancer to check when you bought the property.

There's a pandemic and pingdemic on so 30 mins wait on hold is not the end of the world in a global pandemic.