Lay-Z-Spa Vegas Hot Tub - Known Manufacturing Fault

busybee_1000

We bought the Lay-Z-Spa Vegas Hot Tub in June this year via Amazon.  The tub has developed  a major fault despite having very limited use.  The liner behind the bubble ring has broken and water has seeped into the inflated wall.  I found the Lay-Z-Spa Owners group on Facebook and discovered that the Vegas model is known for developing this fault.  By searching on the group I can find posts going back years with Vegas owners complaining of exactly the same fault.  One other owner mentioned that she bought hers from B&Q and the store exchanged it for a different model as they know the Vegas is faulty. So Lay-Z-Spa are knowingly selling a faulty item.

I am going to contact Lay-z-spa. I believe the liner is covered under the warranty.  But according to the other owners it will fail again as this model has a fault. So once the warranty is expired we will have to keep paying Lay-z-spa for replacement liners (at £200!) or bin it.  I  would like to know if I am entitled to my money back?

A_Geordie

There is no point in contacting Lay-z-spa if they were not the seller of the product on Amazon. Your contract will be with the seller listing the hot tub for sale, whether Amazon, Lay-z-spa or some other third party.

If a fault has occurred with the hot tub after one month but within six months of purchase, you should be able to request a repair or replacement  under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (so long as one option is not disproportionate to the other but that is up to the seller to tell you), which assumes that a fault existed at the time of purchase unless the seller can prove it did not. 

Be aware, a warranty is something typically offered by the manufacturer and is in addition to your consumer rights. However, the warranty terms are usually much more restrictive and comes with conditions as opposed to what you can achieve if you exercise your consumer rights. In other words, I would normally view a warranty or guarantee as a last resort if there's no other option available. 

Once you have identified the seller, you need to write to them and be clear in what you are asking for e.g. you purchased the hot tub, it's faulty, the Consumer Rights Act 2015 allows you to request a replacement (or repair if you prefer a repair) hot tub and please send a new hot tub and collect the existing one. Avoid any superfluous language.

The seller has one chance at resolving the issue through the replacement or repair and if it becomes faulty again you can exercise a final right to reject and seek a refund. However, if the seller is outside of the UK then you might struggle to enforce these rights and therefore you could try any protection afforded by Amazon to obtain a refund or, last resort, rely on the warranty