Halfords refusing to refund or replace faulty car battery

RefluentBeans

Be clear you’re not claiming under warranty and rather claiming on your statutory consumer rights. If you took it into the shop and tried to claim on the warranty, they can put as many exclusions as they want as these are above your minimum statutory rights, and cannot take away from them. 

But - be aware - they can ask for an engineers report if they feel the fault isn’t inherently obvious - and in this case it probably won’t be inherently obvious. The report fundamentally needs to say the product is faulty, and the fault was either there at the start or the product had a design error which would cause the product to go faulty; and that the fault wasn’t caused by you. 

Halfords may claim that the battery died because of you not using it for 2 months (as you said above) but the cell issue is likely the thing to claim for. 

Don’t jump straight to LBA - this is the ‘I’m going to sue you’ and they may well just cease communication awaiting your legal action. The pragmatic approach would be to go into store and ask to speak a supervisor/manager and make it clear that you’re not claiming under their warranty but rather your consumer rights. They may offer to repair or replace it. You have no choice in which of these, as it’s theirs. They may offer a refund - and this point you can’t force a refund, but can ask for one. If they don’t play ball in store, the next step is to make a complaint with their head office/customer service team. Same rules regarding refund/repalcement/repair. 

Ultimately, if the complaining doesn’t work your final option is to write a letter before action. Templates online. Doesn’t need to be long or written in legalese. Just saying why you’re seeking a refund, under what rule you’re seeking a refund, and that you’ll be willing to go to court to fight if needed. If they don’t refund after that, you can either go to court or not. If you don’t, you likely won’t get anywhere with their customer services as they know you’re not willing to follow through. If you do go to court, you will have to fill in some paperwork, pay a fee (which you can also claim back, along with the cost of a report), and wait to hear back. At that point, it’s likely you’ll get an email or letter from Halfords legal team who won’t go to court over this as it’ll cost them more than the battery in legal costs (you don’t need a lawyer, but companies have them because someone needs to do it). If you do go to court, you pay your facts out to the judge, they lay their facts out, and the judge decides. 

The TLDR - don’t jump to LBA - and try to follow the complaints process and be clear you’re claiming under your rights, not the warranty. 

icandy069

RefluentBeans said:

Be clear you’re not claiming under warranty and rather claiming on your statutory consumer rights. If you took it into the shop and tried to claim on the warranty, they can put as many exclusions as they want as these are above your minimum statutory rights, and cannot take away from them. 

But - be aware - they can ask for an engineers report if they feel the fault isn’t inherently obvious - and in this case it probably won’t be inherently obvious. The report fundamentally needs to say the product is faulty, and the fault was either there at the start or the product had a design error which would cause the product to go faulty; and that the fault wasn’t caused by you. 

Halfords may claim that the battery died because of you not using it for 2 months (as you said above) but the cell issue is likely the thing to claim for. 

Don’t jump straight to LBA - this is the ‘I’m going to sue you’ and they may well just cease communication awaiting your legal action. The pragmatic approach would be to go into store and ask to speak a supervisor/manager and make it clear that you’re not claiming under their warranty but rather your consumer rights. They may offer to repair or replace it. You have no choice in which of these, as it’s theirs. They may offer a refund - and this point you can’t force a refund, but can ask for one. If they don’t play ball in store, the next step is to make a complaint with their head office/customer service team. Same rules regarding refund/repalcement/repair. 

Ultimately, if the complaining doesn’t work your final option is to write a letter before action. Templates online. Doesn’t need to be long or written in legalese. Just saying why you’re seeking a refund, under what rule you’re seeking a refund, and that you’ll be willing to go to court to fight if needed. If they don’t refund after that, you can either go to court or not. If you don’t, you likely won’t get anywhere with their customer services as they know you’re not willing to follow through. If you do go to court, you will have to fill in some paperwork, pay a fee (which you can also claim back, along with the cost of a report), and wait to hear back. At that point, it’s likely you’ll get an email or letter from Halfords legal team who won’t go to court over this as it’ll cost them more than the battery in legal costs (you don’t need a lawyer, but companies have them because someone needs to do it). If you do go to court, you pay your facts out to the judge, they lay their facts out, and the judge decides. 

The TLDR - don’t jump to LBA - and try to follow the complaints process and be clear you’re claiming under your rights, not the warranty. 

Great advice...thank you for taking the time.