Hotpoint 10 Year Parts Warranty - oven unrepairable and dangerous

lyall4

Hi there,

My Hotpoint oven is less than 6 years old and under the parts warranty I have just had an engineer out to fix it. However, he has deemed the oven unrepairable and dangerous so has cut off the plug. What had happened is that when the bottom element blew it broke and part of it got jammed in a place that the engineer could not retrieve it from.

I have not heard yet from customer services (the engineer said I would get a call)however I feel that this is totally unacceptable that an oven should break and in a dangerous way, but I have a feeling that they'll tell me I have no right to a free replacement.  

It was only one function of the oven that used the element that had stopped working so I had still  been using it totally unaware of the danger
. 
Has anyone had any similar experiences?
 
Many thanks,

Gail

Keep_pedalling

You will not be entitled to a free replacement and you have no rights as such against Hotpoint although hopefully offer something. If not you may have a claim against the retailer, who did you purchase it from?

lyall4

It was through the company that fitted my kitchen.

Keep_pedalling

lyall4 said:

It was through the company that fitted my kitchen.

Are they still in business?

Alderbank

You do have rights against Hotpoint.

You are entitled to whatever their 10 year parts warranty states, no more and no less. Only you know what your warranty says, but typically it will say that if the oven fails during the first 10 years they will supply the required new part (perhaps a cost of £5-10 to them) on condition that you pay the labour cost of fitting it by their appointed engineer (perhaps a minimum charge of £100 of which £30 is profit).

Quite independently you have consumer rights against the seller. To make a successful claim you would have to show that the element in question failed prematurely, which could be difficult after 5+ years. If you get that far the seller can legally offer you a refund of 10% or less of what you paid new.

ButterCheese

In my experience (a broken fridge/freezer and a dishwasher) the manufacturer would not even give a months' grace on the 1 year warranty.  The place I bought my kitchen from messed up the order, so I didn't even have the appliances in my possession until 3 months after purchase.

Anyway, see what they say.  But I think you're going to be unlucky; it's not their fault that the part broke in such a way to write off the oven.  They may give you the option to pay for repairs and they will still honour the parts warranty, but it may well end up costing you more than a new oven

lyall4

Thanks everyone - I was hoping that I could go down the route of saying that it should be a safety recall issue as I was still able to use one of the oven functions not knowing that the appliance was in a dangerous state. 

voluted

lyall4 said:

Thanks everyone - I was hoping that I could go down the route of saying that it should be a safety recall issue as I was still able to use one of the oven functions not knowing that the appliance was in a dangerous state. 

That's probably true of many items which fail.

I imagine the advice in the manual that no-one bothers to read will say something to the effect of "stop using the device if something breaks and get a professional to look at it."

lyall4

That's a fair point - just so frustrating - honestly the worst oven I've ever had and it was one of the more expensive models - never again!