Fault One Week After Being Fixed

stho1978

Hi,

Looking through the forums, there seems to be different takes on Consumer Rights where a repair is done under warranty. I suppose every case is different, but my case is as follows:

Boiler broke. Engineer came out. Replaced the part. Said 100% that it’s now fixed (I’m not going to hold anyone to say it’s 100% fixed so that’s by the by). I paid my bill – all good.

7 days later, the same fault occurs. I’m guessing that it’s the same part that has only just been replaced that's gone faulty.

So my take on it is is that if it’s the same part, there should be no charge on the replacement part. However, what are my consumer rights in terms of paying another call out fee and / or paying him for work carried out for coming back to replace the part he replaced initially?

If it is a new fault and a new part that has broke, that’s just unlucky on my part I guess and I will have to pay for the part, call out charge etc for it to be fixed. Is this correct also?

Quick recap – if a part has been replaced and gone faulty less than a week later, what should I be paying?

Thanks

Aylesbury_Duck

It depends.  If the new part is faulty and you paid for supply and fit, then it should be replaced and fitted free of charge.  If the new part has failed because of negligence by the fitter, it should be replaced and fitted free of charge.  If another fault somewhere in the system has caused the new part to fail, it's a little more complicated.

What has the technician said when you rang him about the new problem?  What does the warranty say about the situation?

stho1978

Hi – thanks for the reply. Makes total sense. I’ve not managed to get through to the technician yet. He’s fully qualified and comes highly recommended by someone I trust who’s also in the trade so although this is a little troublesome, I’m not panicking yet (I only rang him yesterday night to be fair).

As for the warranty, it’s just a part for an old boiler – the boiler is way out of warranty. So, it’s a case of the part is under warranty not the boiler. I’m guessing the warranty for the part is whatever a standard warranty is under someone’s consumer rights (which will be a lot more than one week??).

powerful_Rogue

stho1978 said:

Hi – thanks for the reply. Makes total sense. I’ve not managed to get through to the technician yet. He’s fully qualified and comes highly recommended by someone I trust who’s also in the trade so although this is a little troublesome, I’m not panicking yet (I only rang him yesterday night to be fair).

As for the warranty, it’s just a part for an old boiler – the boiler is way out of warranty. So, it’s a case of the part is under warranty not the boiler. I’m guessing the warranty for the part is whatever a standard warranty is under someone’s consumer rights (which will be a lot more than one week??).

You're getting warranties and consumer rights confused. A manufacture/retailer/trades person etc has no obligation to offer a warranty. If they do, they can stipullate terms and conditions attached to it.

Consumers rights are against whoever you purchased from and are set in law.

stho1978

So would my consumer rights come into play in this case? IE work carried out, part that was replaced faulty after one week? Does my consumer rights say that I should expect the part to last longer than a week / work carried out to a reasonable standard and if not, I'm within my rights to ask for it to be replaced free of charge?

LeRedoute

stho1978 said:

So would my consumer rights come into play in this case? IE work carried out, part that was replaced faulty after one week? Does my consumer rights say that I should expect the part to last longer than a week / work carried out to a reasonable standard and if not, I'm within my rights to ask for it to be replaced free of charge?

You're within your rights to ask for anything, but it is ultimately up to the tradesperson which remedy (refund/replace/repair) they wish to offer.

They could, for example, just refund you and walk away.

powerful_Rogue

stho1978 said:

So would my consumer rights come into play in this case? IE work carried out, part that was replaced faulty after one week? Does my consumer rights say that I should expect the part to last longer than a week / work carried out to a reasonable standard and if not, I'm within my rights to ask for it to be replaced free of charge?

What's your answer to post number 2?

tightauldgit

If it's the same part that's gone then, while its possible you just got unlucky with a shoddy spare, it's probably more likely that something else is causing that part to fail and the root problem lies elsewhere. 

In which case your consumer rights I would assume would come down to whether an engineer should have been reasonably expected to diagnose the fault properly the first time and what the difference in cost would be had they fixed it the first time. it may also come down to what you actually contracted the engineer to do - 'supply and fit part X' vs 'fix the boiler' 

If you're reasonably confident the technician is above board then I'd let them respond and take a look at it and see if what they say sounds reasonable. 

TELLIT01

The same fault code doesn't automatically mean it's the same fault.  We had a situation a few years ago where a repair was carried out and a couple of weeks later the same code appeared again. The engineer came out, thoroughly tested the replaced part and could find no fault with it.  Long story short, there were actually 3 parts of the electronics which failed in that period.  His suspicion was that the act of removing one part had weakened a joint on another part which eventually failed, taking a third with it.  The work was all done under the maintenance contract so no cost to us.

If it is the same part there should be no charge.

stho1978

powerful_Rogue said:

stho1978 said:

So would my consumer rights come into play in this case? IE work carried out, part that was replaced faulty after one week? Does my consumer rights say that I should expect the part to last longer than a week / work carried out to a reasonable standard and if not, I'm within my rights to ask for it to be replaced free of charge?

What's your answer to post number 2?

Hi - I think I answered that in post 3

stho1978

Thanks everyone - to be honest they guy comes highly recommended (although he's not returned my calls so I'm hoping he's been away for a few days) so I trust him in whatever he says . EG I'm just going to part refund you (he serviced the boiler too so I wouldn't expect anything back for that) or if he says "this  part has now gone wrong which isn't connected to the initial fault" etc.
I was just curious what consumer rights were involved when an engineer has fixed something and it looks like it might be the fixed part that has gone faulty so quickly after.
Everyone has been very helpful and I hope that others learn something from this too.