Faulty Toaster

SylChe

I have a toaster from a famous brand. It works for 1 year and 7 months and started to trip the electricity. It does the same with other sockets but other appliances are fine with those sockets. I bought it from Amazon, 11% off at the time, and it was Amazon’s Choice product with overwhelming positive reviews. Amazon asked me to contact the manufacturer. The manufacturer no longer offers repairs. My local electrician wouldn’t touch it, saying that it’s most likely on its way out. The manufacturer offered me 20% to buy a replacement. After writing back and forth, their final offer out of goodwill is 30%. I am not sure if I am confident to get a replacement that would work to my satisfaction.  The previous toaster I had from Woolworth lasted over a decade. I heard Mr. Martin Lewis talk about reasonable expected life of an appliance on TV, even though its warranty (in this case 30 days) has expired, consumers still have rights.  For a toaster, surely it should be longer than 1 year and 7 months. I later checked the most recent Amazon negative reviews on the same product, it seems to be a common problem after I purchased the item. Amazon is waiting to see how I get on dealing with the manufacturer. Is there anything else I can leverage so I can get either a replacement product or a better offer? Thanks in advance!

tacpot12

1 year 7 months does seem low for a toaster. The nature of the fault suggests premature wear - the insulation is failing somewhere, which is leaking current to earth and tripping the RCD/RCBO protecting the circuit.

30% is a pretty good offer, but if they make bad products, I would want some reassurance that they have improved the quality before buying anything of theirs again.

FreeBear

tacpot12 said:

1 year 7 months does seem low for a toaster. The nature of the fault suggests premature wear - the insulation is failing somewhere, which is leaking current to earth and tripping the RCD/RCBO protecting the circuit.

My first thought is it is full of crumbs and needs cleaning out..

Did have a toaster years back that had a mouse climb in and gorged on the crumbs. At some point it got electrocuted and added to the aroma of the kitchen..

ThisIsWeird

Interesting thought, FB. Lots of bread debris, nicely carbonised = conductive. Perhaps there's enough for a leaky trail due to a design fault?

SC, what actually 'trips'? Is it the main RCD (does everything in the house go off?), or a single MCB breaker for, say, the kitchen? If you are not sure, then a photo of the offending tripper would help.

Does it trip instantly the handle is plunged, or does it take a wee while?

Have you tried the toaster in other sockets - say in a bedroom?

And, apart from the tripping, it appears to work ok?

Mistral001

Modern toasters are not built to be fixed if anything goes wrong with them.  Many have  electronic timers, rather than the more robust heat detectors or mechanical timers of the older toasters.  They in fact are also generally less robust all round, with more plastic and those parts which are metal have thinner metal than older toasters.

macman

Unless it's a Dualit, it won't be repairable. No spares for most of this stuff. What did it cost? I doubt that it's worth you paying probably £60+ for an engineer's report to support your case if you really want to pursue it under CRA 2015.

littleboo

My toaster started tripping the electrics a week ago, I gave it a good shake out and its working just fine

greyteam1959

Most toasters have a slide out tray underneath the main body.
Have you  cleaned it out ?