Obtaining obsolete boiler parts

daveybuk

Apologies for starting a second thread, but the thrust of this is slightly different to my other one.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I may be able to obtain spare parts for a Maxol Microturbo 402 MDF boiler?

My gas engineer has told me mine requires a fairly simple repair, but because Maxol were taken over by Halstead, spares are no longer available. The upshot - a bill running close on £4000 for a complete new system (I know that's expensive, and I will be chasing other quotes). It's particularly distressing as the boiler is only about 7-8 years old.

If I can somehow get the parts then apparently British Gas will fit them under my Homecare agreement. Help!

jdc110571

wow £4000 is steep! My hubby a gasengineer and charges £1000-£2000 max
vicky

Canucklehead

daveybuk wrote: »

Apologies for starting a second thread, but the thrust of this is slightly different to my other one.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I may be able to obtain spare parts for a Maxol Microturbo 402 MDF boiler?

My gas engineer has told me mine requires a fairly simple repair, but because Maxol were taken over by Halstead, spares are no longer available. The upshot - a bill running close on £4000 for a complete new system (I know that's expensive, and I will be chasing other quotes). It's particularly distressing as the boiler is only about 7-8 years old.

If I can somehow get the parts then apparently British Gas will fit them under my Homecare agreement. Help!

Good evening: Many experienced CORGIs post on the plumbing and heating forum on www.diynot.com ...and could provide further advice (I assume the supplier I mentioned in your other thread was unable to help you out?)

HTH

Canucklehead

macman

So the real issue here is: if Joe Bloggs can find the parts on the interweb in 5 minutes with the aid of Google, why can't BG? Or are they more interested in just fitting you an overpriced boiler? Surely not!

Gaz_Hammer

Hi Davey,
Any idea what part or parts are needed?

Regards
Gaz

spiro

macman wrote: »

So the real issue here is: if Joe Bloggs can find the parts on the interweb in 5 minutes with the aid of Google, why can't BG? Or are they more interested in just fitting you an overpriced boiler? Surely not!

I suspect BG like most large companies have a list of 'preferred' suppliers who they buy all their goods (spares in this case) from. If these companies cant supply them their purchasing system wont be able to raise an order for Joe Bloggs Supply Company. Hence why they are saying if you can get the part we will fit it.

ollski

Bg use all the major parts suppliers and several smaller ones, they also have a team who will try to source parts from other avenues if possible but you can't expect them to find obsolete parts for obsolete boilers. If the op has time to trwal the net to see if some old engineer may be listing the contents of his shed on ebay etc then it 's worth a go as bg will fit it.

notbritishgas

I think Davey has frozen to death in the two and half years since he posted.
However to add to this topic my daughter had her annual Homecare service recently and her boiler was condemned for faulty case seal which BG were not able to source. The engineer put her through to "sales" to make an appointment for a sales visit for a new boiler, for which he told her he was paid £12.
A quick google revealed the seal was available for £2.34.

ollski

That's why bg will still fit a part if you obtain it from an obscure source. Manufacturers declare the part obsolete and no longer supply it to bg or anyone, it's illegal to fit parts not approved by the manufacturer so that is your only hope to find something which is still sitting on some suppliers shelf.

Cheery_Daff

We had a similar problem to notbritishgas - BG came to do a routine annual service, declared that some part of the boiler was broken, that it was obsolete and therefore not available from their supplier, and that we would therefore need a new boiler, at a cost of £3000. Then they hacksawed through the gas supply leading to the boiler, leaving us without hot water or heating in all that snow last Christmas.

We sourced the part ourselves, eventually found someone else to fit it (after several weeks of freezing over Christmas) - they reconnected the gas supply, ran the safety checks - and could find nothing at all wrong with the boiler.... Several months later there's still no problem with it!

As for sourcing parts, we rang a friendly local builder, who put us through to a friendly local gas fitter, who had a local warehouse for parts. They also refunded the price when we found we didn't need it after all. Always worth getting a second opinion I reckon!