Is there a time limit on repairs?

kittennose

3 month old coffee machine from Delonghi just broke - this is a £500 machine - they are picking it up to repair it but telling us it's a minimum of 28 days, possibly more to get it back.

For such an expensive product I'm rather disappointed in this time, especially when other businesses would just send a replacement. We will now need to buy a replacement / buy retail so we will be out of pocket either way. we don't really want to give up a decent coffee for 1-2 months and don't feel we should have to either.

Is there a time limit businesses are allowed to do repairs or can they take as long as they need?

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Generally it's within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience so for a fridge 28 days perhaps could be argued as unreasonable or causing inconvenience but for a coffee machine perhaps not  

If you purchased direct from Delonghi and something went wrong in the future you'd then have the right to reject for a refund (reduced to account for usage if that happened after 6 months) as they only get 1 repair attempt. 

If you purchased from a different place and this is a warranty repair then right to reject would depend upon whether you went straight to Delonghi without contacting the retailer (right to reject wouldn't apply) or whether you contacted the retailer and they sent you to Delonghi (right to reject would apply).

Hopefully they'll be on the quicker side and you'll be back to enjoying a morning coffee before you know it  

powerful_Rogue

kittennose said:

3 month old coffee machine from Delonghi just broke - this is a £500 machine - they are picking it up to repair it but telling us it's a minimum of 28 days, possibly more to get it back.

For such an expensive product I'm rather disappointed in this time, especially when other businesses would just send a replacement. We will now need to buy a replacement / buy retail so we will be out of pocket either way. we don't really want to give up a decent coffee for 1-2 months and don't feel we should have to either.

Is there a time limit businesses are allowed to do repairs or can they take as long as they need?

The law states regarding repairs:

The trader must do so within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience to the consumer

I don't think the court would look at being without a decent coffee for a minimum of 28 days a 'significant inconvenience'.

kittennose

powerful_Rogue said:

The trader must do so within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience to the consumer

I don't think the court would look at being without a decent coffee for a minimum of 28 days a 'significant inconvenience'.

Little do they know! 🤣

HillStreetBlues

powerful_Rogue said:

The law states regarding repairs:

The trader must do so within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience to the consumer

I don't think the court would look at being without a decent coffee for a minimum of 28 days a 'significant inconvenience'.

But if a person is spending a monkey on a coffee maker then  that could show how important a decent coffee is to that person.

Manxman_in_exile

I don't like coffee but if I'd spent £500 on a coffee machine and was simply told it would take a minimum of 28 days to fix it I'd be extremely unhappy.  That's an open-ended time period that would also cover 6 months, or 12 months, or 12 years.

If DeLonghi aren't able (or are clearly unwilling) to give a more accurate indication of how long it would take, I think a court would hold that just stating 28 days or longer would be unreasonable.  It's not acceptable to give an open-ended time-scale.

Conversely, if they'd said something like up to 6 weeks or 6 weeks max, I think that might be reasonable.

Of course, all that depends on whether DeLonghi were the seller or the seller referred the OP to DeLonghi to repair on the seller's behalf

powerful_Rogue

HillStreetBlues said:

powerful_Rogue said:

The law states regarding repairs:

The trader must do so within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience to the consumer

I don't think the court would look at being without a decent coffee for a minimum of 28 days a 'significant inconvenience'.

But if a person is spending a monkey on a coffee maker then  that could show how important a decent coffee is to that person.

That's pretty cheap for a Delonghi coffee machine. I could see not having a posh coffee being an inconveneince, just not a significant one.