John Lewis 5 year warranty on TV & Consumer Rights

good2talk

Hello

Sorry for the long post. 

In December 2018 I bought a LG Oled TV from John Lewis online for £2999. The tv came with a 5 year warranty. 

In November 2022 (approximately 4 years later) I noticed a faded line running down middle of screen. I contacted John Lewis technical support who arranged for the engineer to come and have a look. 

The tv engineers company is ICTV. 

The engineer arrived a week or so later. He said it couldn’t be repaired and he will let John Lewis know. A week later I didn’t hear back so called John Lewis and they told me that a replacement screen had been ordered and the engineer would arrive again to replace my screen. 

The engineer arrived 3 weeks later with a screen. He removed my tv from the wall and opened it all up to replace the screen. When he took new screen out of box he said it was wrong screen. Then he assembled my tv up again and called his office. They advised him that he wasn’t allowed to replace the screen at customers house and that he would need to bring it to the workshop. I told him that I wouldn’t have a tv to use if he took it straight away. He said he would come back in a couple of days with a loan tv and take mine. 

A couple of days later same engineer arrived with a loan tv and took mine. He left and when I tried to use the loan tv it wouldn’t work as there seemed to be faults with all HDMI connections. So I couldn’t use this tv. 

A couple of weeks later, a different engineer arrived with my tv and the screen had been replaced. He put the tv on the wall and connected my led lights on back of tv, in doing so he connected them wrong and broke the connector. I wasn’t happy. When he switched tv on there was bleeding all over the screen and about 10-15 line’s running down the screen. So the tv was in worse condition then the initial fault. He called his office to explain that it hadn’t been repaired properly. He was in a rush and said he couldn’t hang around all day and had other jobs to go to. He just walked out of my house, leaving my unusable tv on the wall and the faulty loan tv on the sofa. 

I called John Lewis to complain about this engineer and they said we will look into it. 

A couple of weeks later another engineer arrived to collect my unusable tv and the faulty loan tv and gave me another loan tv. 

The engineer told me they will sort my tv out asap but it could take another 3-4 weeks for another screen to arrive. When they left I tried to watch the loan tv and this was also faulty as it was rebooting itself every 30 seconds. I contacted engineer company and was told they don’t have many loan tv’s which work. 

I contacted John Lewis to tell them about the situation and that I wasn’t happy that my tv has been taken back again and I may have to wait again for another 3-4 weeks for another screen. 

John Lewis said they will speak to tv engineers company and get back to me. 

5 days later John Lewis called me back and said the new screen could take 1 week to arrive and it will take a few days after that to get repair done. 

I told them that I wasn’t happy. One repair has already been done which was unsuccessful. I have been without a working tv in my house since 21 December and today is 1 February and I’m still being told it will take more than a week to get my tv repaired. 

John Lewis started giving me my options quoting consumer rights. He gave me 2 options. 

1. Wait for repairs to be carried out on my tv which can take between 1-2 more weeks.
2. Have a partial refund of £1000 as I’ve used the tv for nearly 3 years and 11 months, and John Lewis will keep my faulty tv. 

I said to John Lewis that I’m not happy with either option. I said John Lewis states that tv repair is done within 28 days (on their website) and I have waited nearly 2 months and repairs have still not been done successfully. I also mentioned that after paying £3000 initially, I think that £1000 partial refund is too low. I also said I would be happier with a replacement tv of similar specifications as was mentioned on their website but he refused this. 

He advised me that these 2 were my only options and he couldn’t do more. He was from the higher complaints team. I said to him I will think about it and let him know what I would like to do. 

I want to know is John Lewis correct in what they are telling me?
Is it correct them offering me £1000 partial refund for a tv which I have paid £3000 4 years ago? I know I’ve used the tv for nearly 4 years but I thought £1000 was too low. 

Any experience/advice/help would be greatly appreciated. 

Once again sorry for the long post. 

screech_78

How much would you pay for a 4 year old TV? 

You’ve clearly received poor service, but they’re providing you with other options which satisfies their responsibilities under the CRA. You can always try and push for a little more for the refund however JL calculate this and it’ll be correct for the way they deal with these things. 

You’ll only get a replacement if the TV can’t be repaired. 

Aylesbury_Duck

How much are you after?  No harm in asking for a bit more, but if you go in asking for £2,000 I doubt you'll succeed.  If you send the current offer is the best they'll do, I'd grab the £1,000. 

What's the spec of your current TV?  What would the same spec of TV cost today?  You may not be able to get the same spec TV for £1,000 but you have had four years' use of the old unit.  It seems a pretty good deal to me, and yes, they're correct to make an offer like that.

diystarter7

Hi OP

The 1k is good but only if you were considering changing you tv at year 5

OLED tv's have come down in price as we recently paid several k's for a Sony, top flight tv and its big, really big

So consider this - it your tv is realtively samll 55 or less, with the 1k plus a few hundred pounds you'd be able to get a very decent OLED for about 1600  - the sound is btter as well but for us and many, most use additional sound systems as all flat screen have limited sounds abilty

The other thing you could do is ask for the 1k and your tv back repaired and they ca kill the warranty on that when repaired and returned

Be aware that a new tv may require new wall brackets

Even cheaper OLED had really good pic quality when viewd via 4k/HD etc.


Thanks

km1500

what is the make and model of your TV - that might help.put a value on it

Manxman_in_exile

good2talk said:

... John Lewis started giving me my options quoting consumer rights. He gave me 2 options. 

1. Wait for repairs to be carried out on my tv which can take between 1-2 more weeks.
2. Have a partial refund of £1000 as I’ve used the tv for nearly 3 years and 11 months, and John Lewis will keep my faulty tv...

Well - so far as your "consumer rights" are concerned those two options seem fair enough.  The repair firm that JL are using don't sound particularly reliable so option 2 may be the better one.

If you were to assume a 5 year life for the TV, then after 4 years JL could argue that its residual value (using that as a proxy for your use of it) was only £600.  That's £3000 divided by five years = £600.  

If JL are offering you £1000 that sounds like they are assuming a tv life of 6 years (£3000/6 = £500, so two years left is £1000.)

Whether 6 years is reasonable or not I don't know.  I'm watching a 15 year old tv right now, but I suspect that is very unusual and that TVs have a far shorter life these days.

You could try arguing for £1200 - £1500 but I doubt you'll succeed.  But if you don't try...

But the title of your thread refers to "JL's 5 year warranty" on TVs, not to your consumer rights.  What do the terms of that guarantee actually say?  Does it give better options than your consumer rights?  That's the point of the warranty isn't it?

(Other posters here tend to laud JL's TV warranty but I'm not sure if it's a good deal or not.  I'm not sure JL are still as reliable a retail brand as they used to be.  But the point of the warranty is to give you options in addition to your consumer rights)

good2talk

km1500 said:

what is the make and model of your TV - that might help.put a value on it

The model is LG OLED65E8PLA. 

It was top of the range LG models at the time of purchase. 

good2talk

https://www.johnlewis.com/customer-services/guarantees-and-troubleshooting-guides?dt=guarantees-electricals-electricalTv

This is the link to John Lewis’s tv warranties. 

Manxman_in_exile

Well you could try to rely on this:

"If we can't repair your TV, we'll replace it with a TV of equivalent specification. If no equivalent product is available, we'll either offer you the nearest equivalent specification or its selling price value, and we'll always do our best to make sure you're satisfied with the outcome"

Tell them they've had one chance to repair it and have actually made it worse, and you have no confidence in the people they've contracted the repair to.  Say you want an equivalent replacement or its selling price value under the terms of their warranty.

The problem you might have is that the warranty doen't put any limit on how many repair attempts they can have...

You could also try escalating to:

"Escalated Complaints Process

If you've contacted us and you feel that we haven't resolved your complaint satisfactorily, please email or write to our Head of Customer Service Team:

Email: Head_of_Customer_Service@johnlewis.co.uk

Write: Customer Relations Department, John Lewis & Partners, PO Box 3586, Glasgow G73 9DW"

km1500

Worth about £699 without stand?

https://www.cheaptvs.co.uk/65-LG-OLED65E8PLA-4K-OLED-Ultra-HD-HDR-Freeview-HD-Smart-TV

Google OLED65E8PLA there may be more examples

TELLIT01

If the TV cost £3k and you have had it for 80% of the warranty period, an offer of approximately 33% of the original cost doesn't seem unreasonable on the face of it.  However, you need to look closely at the T&C of the warranty to determine what the options are if the set can't be repaired.