Consumer Rights surrounding Furniture Village Sofa delivered faulty/damaged

RS2OOO

Manxman_in_exile said:

RS2OOO said:

... On another note, I have read stories online about the showroom furniture being a higher spec compared to what the customer receives. I take online comments like this with a pinch of salt.

However, myself and wife went back to the store to have a look, and sure enough there are a number of differences. 

• The material on the showroom furniture is fitted a lot tighter with no creases / saggyness or loose material like there is on ours.
• The furniture in showroom is without doubt more springier to sit/bounce on.
• Each piece of the showroom furniture has extra bracing / support at the back, so for example when you lift the back velcro covers on our furniture there is just empty space inside (and loose and/or crossthreaded screws lol), but the showroom furniture has these extra material covered panels as photographed:

I mentioned these to the inspector who seemed to want to avoid the subject, but just about conceded / indicated that the showroom furniture is assembled in the UK but the furniture the customer receives comes straight from China.

Are those photos of the showroom display items?

Under s14 of Consumer Rights Act 2015 (legislation.gov.uk), the goods you buy must match any model of the goods that you saw or examined before entering into the contract.

If I were you I would keep those photos safe, and I would also take corresponding photos of your own sofa to demonstrate the differences between what you saw on display and what was delivered to you

Hopefully you won't need them, but if it turns out that you are unhappy or dissatisfied with the repair that FV carries out, they might add additional weight to your argument against FV.

ie not only was the delivered sofa faulty, it also didn't match the display model that you saw and examined.  (I'd suggest the important difference is the additional support and bracing on the showroom model, not so much the tightness of the cover or the sofa's "bounceability")

Thanks for the helpful info.

Yep, those photos are of the exact same corner sofa on display in the showroom.
And the Sofa I received just has voids when you lift the back (velcro) covers.

The only justifiable reason I can think of as to why the showroom might have these extra parts is to prevent a liability claim if a child was to lift the velcro cover, climb into the rear void and potentially get crushed or injured by the reclining mechanism. 

I showed them to the Castalan inspector but he did not know why there's a difference.

One other thing I should mention while on the subject of showroom differences, the inspector said each arm of my sofa had been installed with 2 coach type bolts, which had not been tightened. He said the specification shows they should each have 3 bolts and that he'd need to drill through the arms to install a 3rd bolt.

The Sofa consists of 5 modular units, and 2 (matching) units have significantly better build quality to the rest. I strongly suspect they were manufactured in different places.

RS2OOO

Latest update.....

Repair technician arrived 9am this morning, worked solid till 14:25 and has just left.

1) Very large black grease marks to sofa corner piece - Repaired.

2) Small black grease mark to front of 2nd from right sofa seat - Repaired

3) Damaged fabric to front of backrest of single recliner chair - Repaired.

4) Left most sofa recliner makes a clonking noise when you sit down and get up, or if you move your body whilst sitting on it. - Not fully repaired.

5) 2x Sofa backrests are not aligned with each other (One in particular sticks forward by around 5cm and detatches and falls to one side when pressure applied). Not repaired.

6) All pieces have bent untightened silver screws sticking out under the rear veclro attached covers, and the brackets they are screwed through are also bent. - Repaired.

7) A black trim clip was found on the floor after delivery - Turns out it belongs to a different sofa but somehow ended up in the internals of my sofa.

8) Loose sagging and creased seat material on single recliner chair - Repaired with new / additional filling material.

Items 4 and 5 were identified as missing / untightened fixings that tie the sofa arm into the frame and misaligned back rest mounting brackets.

The arm was drilled and 3  coach bolts installed which fixed that issue and the back rest mounting brackets re-aligned (bent to shape).

However the clonking still exists and the side of the sofa (which comes lower than the feet) touches the floor and damages the carpet if you attempt to recline it - the whole section including the seat is tilted to one side. We didn't specifically notice this at the time of delivery and by the time we did notice we assumed it was related to the loose arm. The technician has advised, and reported back to Castalan that the entire sofa frame and reclining mechanism is both misaligned and poorly assembled (rivets that are too small for the holes which allows excessive movement of the frame).

Technician advised to wait 24 hours for his notes to be uploaded onto the system and then for me to report back to FV to arrange the repairs.

My Wife is of the mind to reject the sofa altogether, whereas I'm thinking after all the work is done we'll end up with a better sofa than what comes out of the factory, plus we chose this suite over and above others because it was the closest to being exactly what we wanted. Further, we decorated the entire rooom to complement the colour of this suite, so shopping for a replacement won't be a walk in the park.

The saga continues, but so far FV have done everything they promised to do, albeit not till after my "consumer rights" email and pausing of the right to rejection.

tightauldgit

Honestly from what you say it sounds like it's been put together rather badly and if those faults are obvious on day one I'd be rather worried about the longevity and what I can't see. 

It might make a difference if they offer a substantial discount but I'd be minded to reject the whole thing. 

greyteam1959

I would reject the sofa completely if it was me.
Sounds like a right load of rubbish that will never be right.
But that's my opinion only.

RS2OOO

9 days since the unresolved faults were reported by the Technician and by myself to FV.

No response as yet.

In my email I did state that the 30 day reject period was to remain paused since repairs have not yet been completed, so as far as I'm concerned that option remains open.

We have started looking at other suites in the FV range in case we do go down the reject route, but so far not found anything suitable. The reject option is becoming more attractive since the replacement filling in the armchair has already sagged (it actually started sagging within 24 hours of the repair) and all who have sat in that chair for more than an hour have complained of backache, myself included.

Appreciate the reject option is probably what most people would now do, but I'm not keen on the hassle of finding a replacement, being accepted on a new credit agreement at a time when I'm re-mortgaging, and being sofa-less for another 12 to 15 weeks whilst awaiting delivery.

What would your thoughts be if we just asked for a like for like replacement (which avoids all the aforementioned issues)?

Wife is concerned this could take us back to square one if the replacement also has issues.

Alderbank

RS2OOO said:

What would your thoughts be if we just asked for a like for like replacement?

My thoughts? Reminds me of the old saying that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

RS2OOO

Alderbank said:

RS2OOO said:

What would your thoughts be if we just asked for a like for like replacement?

My thoughts? Reminds me of the old saying that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Hmmmm, yeah you are likely correct, as is my wife who says the same.

I was kind of hoping for an easy resolution, more so being a bloke who doesn't want to spend/waste another weekend or 2 shopping for a sofa, followed by 12+ weeks having nothing to sit on while waiting for delivery, plus the finance issue I mentioned. But if your thoughts are the same as the majority, then its probably me who's in need of a sanity check!

Buying stuff is rarely an enjoyable experience these days, and it seems to come in bursts where everything you order seems to arrive damaged/faulty/not as described, or when buying cheaper products, a total waste of the earths resources.

RS2OOO

I decided to email FV back and request replacement of the 2 units that still carry faults as opposed to having further repairs.

The other peices that have been repaired are now satisfactory so rejecting the entire suite isn't really necessary.

I will give them 3 working days to respond before chasing by phone.

tightauldgit

RS2OOO said:

I decided to email FV back and request replacement of the 2 units that still carry faults as opposed to having further repairs.

The other peices that have been repaired are now satisfactory so rejecting the entire suite isn't really necessary.

I will give them 3 working days to respond before chasing by phone.

Be aware you are possibly running the risk of the new units not matching the old ones exactly. 

HillStreetBlues

tightauldgit said:

RS2OOO said:

I decided to email FV back and request replacement of the 2 units that still carry faults as opposed to having further repairs.

The other peices that have been repaired are now satisfactory so rejecting the entire suite isn't really necessary.

I will give them 3 working days to respond before chasing by phone.

Be aware you are possibly running the risk of the new units not matching the old ones exactly. 

And the risk of the new units matching the old ones!