IKEA/Whirlpool oven warranty repairs - multiple visits for same fault

simon30301

Bought an IKEA oven 11.16, with five year warranty; oven element replaced earlier this year.

Grill failed in October, warranty call placed with Whirlpool service; first call - 5.10.21 - postponed due to parts unavailable, rescheduled  for 21.10 - element fitted, seemingly ok. Came to use it two days later, not working, call placed.

New visit 2.11.21. Now a new board fitted & programmed, apparently all ok. NOT ok as grill does not work, new call placed.

Visit 11.11.21.

No parts fitted, but oven/grill fully tested, engineer (3rd different one) knew what the issue was apparently, parts ordered.

Call logged for 16.11. Received a call on the day to say no parts delivered, so rescheduled for 23.11.

Another (fourth) engineer arrived, no parts, saying he thinks the unit is not repairable, he is unable to speak to superiors, so he says he has to order parts, but hoping for an exchange. He advised me to speak to IKEA; IKEA say speak to Whirlpool, as they handle all warranty issues. Spoke to Whirlpool yesterday, they really just want to schedule another repair attempt, but under duress will put forward an exchange request. I spoke to IKEA again, who still not interested, suggest I escalate with Whirlpool.

Tried today, with no joy - apparently there is no escalation available over the phone, as exchange request in place; next visit booked for 2.12.21.

I am at a loss - Whirlpool do not accept that four plus attempts over a six week period to fix a fault, and engineers arriving with no parts is unreasonable - I understood that 30 days was considered a reasonable time to effect a repair; they "reserve the right to carry out repairs, until resolved".

I know the unit is five years old, so faults can be expected, and they are; my real issue is Whirlpool's attitude - I thought the CRA allowed them no more than one chance at a repair...

Any ideas as to where I can go, or am I just being unreasonable here? Happy to hear both arguments!

Sandtree

The CRA allows 1 attempt by the retailer/under their instruction but warranties are separate and are subject to their own T&Cs

If you pursue Ikea as the retailer then they can choose repair, replace or refund for the 1st attempt (one attempt isnt just 1 visit) and you can demand a refund on the 2nd fault. In all cases a refund can be reduced to reflect the use from the item and so given the item is over 5 years old you'd be likely to get less than 1/6th of the price back.

This all sounds like one attempt though and if the item is unrepairable its likely the warranty is more generous than your statutory rights (but check the warranty wording)

Alderbank

simon30301 said:

Spoke to Whirlpool yesterday, they really just want to schedule another repair attempt, but under duress will put forward an exchange request.  my real issue is Whirlpool's attitude -  am I just being unreasonable here? 

Yes, I'm afraid that I think you are.
Your consumer rights are with IKEA and if you are insisting on a new replacement after 5 years I think you are unreasonable. The repair might be tedious but really is your best option. Once properly fixed the grill could well give you five years of trouble free use. IKEA are entitled to simply give you the current value of the appliance which as Sandtree says will now be next to nothing.

Sandtree

Alderbank said:
IKEA are entitled to simply give you the current value of the appliance

The 24(8) of the CRA actually states 

 any refund to the consumer may be reduced by a deduction for use, to take account of the use the consumer has had of the goods in the period since they were delivered

Being typical of laws it doesnt give any further indication of how the deduction for "use" should be calculated. You could argue that secondhand value also reflects "use" and so is a good proxy but yet to have any merchant suggest that as a mechanism and I'd argue that for many goods its disproportional as things like fridges go off a cliff as soon as they're secondhand but will be fairly steady state from there on so someone with an 18 month old defective fridge could be offered the same as someone with a 49 month old fridge whereas clearly the later has had more use.

The couple of retailers I've had to fight with have proposed using a simple linear depreciation instead based on months held -v- often an arbitrary 72 months (probably derived from your 6 year rights) but probably more realistically should be the reasonable lifespan of such an item. As my items were fairly new it wasnt worth much more of a fight. 

simon30301

Thanks everyone.....as I said my real issue is with Whirlpool's shrug of the shoulders about the what will be five visits to fix the issue. I really wasn't expecting a replacement unit, I don't think, and I do take on board that five years of use would reduce the expected value anyway.

We decided that it was just worth letting them get on with the repair. It must have cost them a fortune so far...one of the engineers told me that they are allotted 30 minutes per call, some will take less, some more, so I wasn't expecting miracles, just a glimmer of a desire for customer satisfaction.

Having worked in commercial equipment service (catering, refrigeration, air conditioning) for 25 years plus, I was just astounded at Whirlpool really.

It does make us wonder about the worth of appliances - IKEA offer the 5 year warrranty, and we are fortunate that we were just inside that when this started; the oven wasn't that expensive, and has been pretty trouble free until now, I do wonder if we had bought a NEFF, say, a la Bake Off, at around 75% more, would we have got better overall? Who knows.

LaHostessAvecLaMostess

simon30301 said:

Thanks everyone.....as I said my real issue is with Whirlpool's shrug of the shoulders about the what will be five visits to fix the issue. I really wasn't expecting a replacement unit, I don't think, and I do take on board that five years of use would reduce the expected value anyway.

We decided that it was just worth letting them get on with the repair. It must have cost them a fortune so far...one of the engineers told me that they are allotted 30 minutes per call, some will take less, some more, so I wasn't expecting miracles, just a glimmer of a desire for customer satisfaction.

Having worked in commercial equipment service (catering, refrigeration, air conditioning) for 25 years plus, I was just astounded at Whirlpool really.

It does make us wonder about the worth of appliances - IKEA offer the 5 year warrranty, and we are fortunate that we were just inside that when this started; the oven wasn't that expensive, and has been pretty trouble free until now, I do wonder if we had bought a NEFF, say, a la Bake Off, at around 75% more, would we have got better overall? Who knows.

Maybe, maybe not. Consumer appliances have been in a race to the bottom for years now, probably due in large part to people being conditioned into expecting them to fall apart after a relatively short period of time so people buy cheap crap on the basis that if they're going to have to replace it every 6 or so years, might as well not spend a bucketful of cash on it.

That then pushes manufacturers to produce cheaper and cheaper crap, fuelling the low expectations of consumers rinse/repeat.