New cooker from Currys -door handle came off oven-glass shattered-warranty?

WheatenBriar

The Call centre is claiming this is accidental damage and not covered under the 12 month warranty
All I did was open the door to take the food out and the handle came instead and the outer panel glass shattered on the oven door leaving shards all over the place
They are saying it would be if we took out the extended warranty...
The cooker was bought two months ago,it is a hot point dual fuel installed by an RGI plumber

Surely this should not have happened and build quality is at issue here and covered under warranty?

What are my options,thank you

foggy_lad

WheatenBriar wrote: »

The Call centre is claiming this is accidental damage and not covered under the 12 month warranty
All I did was open the door to take the food out and the handle came instead and the outer panel glass shattered on the oven door leaving shards all over the place
They are saying it would be if we took out the extended warranty...
The cooker was bought two months ago,it is a hot point dual fuel installed by an RGI plumber

Surely this should not have happened and build quality is at issue here and covered under warranty?

What are my options,thank you

Write to the shop you bought the cooker outlining your issue(you could tell them that a cooker oven door should not shatter into pieces like that and the cooker was unfit for purpose and not reasonably durable so you are within your statutory rights to reject the goods.), then tell them what you expect from them, (repair, replacement or refund), then give them 10 days to resolve your issue.

If they don't sort it out you need to start small claims court proceedings. you will not normally need a solicitor and the total cost is €25.

ssmith6287

Can you prove you didnt hit anything against it and it smashed. Like is it just the outer layer broken. Is the handle broke or the screws warped. It might be difficult enough in court to prove you didn't damge it

Pumpkinseeds

I would suggest phoning Hotpoint. We bought a Belling cooker a couple of years ago, expensive piece of sh*t. Long story short, the oven door kept opening from the first time we switched the cooker on. Currys told us it wasn't their problem and that we had to get in touch with Belling. It turned out that it's a fault they know about with the glass internal panel and they sent an engineer out to replace the panel. You might find it's a fault with the handle.

WheatenBriar

After an hour on the phone to hot point again,they've agreed to send an engineer out this week to have a look at it,what is he going to do I wonder?

Regarding the door handle,it just popped out ,shattering the glass,being opened in the normal way,it now looks like a very flimsy build

ssmith6287

MAke sure you hold onto EVERYTHING, screws, seels etc. Just so you can show either the engineer or if you have to take it further. Ive heard of alot of people going in with no defence other then "it should last" and leaving with nothing. Id imagine with the handle if the glass broke around it, there would still be glass between the seal and handle.

slimjimmc

ssmith6287 wrote: »

Can you prove you didnt hit anything against it and it smashed. Like is it just the outer layer broken. Is the handle broke or the screws warped. It might be difficult enough in court to prove you didn't damge it

The cooker is only 2 months old and under consumer law any defect showing up within the 1st 6 months is assumed to be there from day #1. If the seller/manufacturer wants to dispute the claim then it would be up to them to show the OP broke it.

8. (1) Subject to paragraph (2), any lack of conformity which becomes apparent within 6 months from the date of delivery of the goods shall, unless the contrary is proved, be presumed to have existed at the time of delivery of the goods.

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2003/en/si/0011.html

ssmith6287

slimjimmc wrote: »

The cooker is only 2 months old and under consumer law any defect showing up within the 1st 6 months is assumed to be there from day #1. If the seller/manufacturer wants to dispute the claim then it would be up to them to show the OP broke it.

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2003/en/si/0011.html

SlimJim if you drop the oven outside the showroom and it smashes its not under warranty. Same way if its on full heat and someone hits it with a ladder. I know this isnt what happened but for the sake of playing devils advocate and what could possibly be asked. Generally the retailer will know the potential flaws in the product because if it is common they would have seen it before. If they have never seen it, then they have to be suspicious especially when there is a smash rather then something mechanical going wrong

P. Breathnach

People commenting here do not know exactly what happened. What we do know is that OP does not believe there was misuse or accidental damage.

The seller has the right to look for evidence of the consumer being at fault, and if that is found to be the case, to repudiate a claim. My interpretation of the original post is that somebody at the call centre made a judgement without arranging for somebody to look at the cooker. That is plainly unreasonable.

Further, I would expect something like a cooker to be reasonably robust, so that pulling the wrong way on a handle or making a lightish impact on the door would not result in breakage.

Your options, OP? Write formally to Curry's. Say that the cooker is not of merchantable quality, and that you are rejecting it. Give them ten days to respond with proposals to remedy the situation. If they ask for an opportunity to inspect the cooker, be reasonably accommodating. If, after inspecting it, they say it was accidental damage, then you might have a fight on your hands.

Riverireland

Phone the department of consumer affairs. They helped me with something recently and with a lot of determination got the shop to replace the oven. In a nutshell they told me.

My contract was with the shop not the manufacturer.
Goods must be fit for purpose, in your case clearly an oven door handle should not just come off.

Did you take pics and if so can you post them?

Riverireland

WheatenBriar wrote: »

After an hour on the phone to hot point again,they've agreed to send an engineer out this week to have a look at it,what is he going to do I wonder?

Regarding the door handle,it just popped out ,shattering the glass,being opened in the normal way,it now looks like a very flimsy build

I wouldn't and didn't accept this. Phone consumer affairs and take pictures if you haven't already. If you have a Twitter account tweet the pictures to the shops Twitter account and explain you are not happy.

P. Breathnach

Riverireland wrote: »

I wouldn't and didn't accept this....

Other than bearing in mind that the legal obligation rests with Curry's rather than Hotpoint, I see no good reason to be uncooperative with steps taken to examine the damage and to ascertain how it occurred.

WheatenBriar

Aye pictures taken yesterday but plan is to see what engineer says and if not happy then I'll go down other avenues

slimjimmc

ssmith6287 wrote: »

SlimJim if you drop the oven outside the showroom and it smashes its not under warranty. Same way if its on full heat and someone hits it with a ladder. I know this isnt what happened but for the sake of playing devils advocate and what could possibly be asked. Generally the retailer will know the potential flaws in the product because if it is common they would have seen it before. If they have never seen it, then they have to be suspicious especially when there is a smash rather then something mechanical going wrong

Nevertheless, within the 1st 6 months the onus is on the seller to prove his suspicions, not on the consumer to disprove them. That is a statutory regulation which trumps any warranty.

ssmith6287

Yes on Mechanical or electrical faults. When its a smash its completely different unless like I said there have been cases before. Most good retailers, if they have heard of such problems, won't argue and will straight away side with the consumer.

WheatenBriar

Google has lots of examples of door issues
Here is one of them

Is the sale of goods act here still similar to the UK?


https://www.avforums.com/threads/sale-of-goods-act-glass-oven-door-went-boom.1189954/

ssmith6287

I cant see the make and model being the same as yours. Google headache and google will tell you you have a tumor. I'm not denying what your saying is true and yes glass does randomly explode. Ive seen my patio door do it. But you have to understand the suspicion of the retailer until they get the engineers report. I think the general perception of retail staff is uneducated, rude, out to con. I worked in Electrical retail for years. I have a degree in IT. My colleagues, bar 1, had degrees in fairly relevant fields. I don't know what way currys staff work but I know when I was advising on a purchase, if I knew the model or product can be dodgy, I'd be straight about it. E.g Specific Acer and dell laptops. They were notorious for overheating and motherboard failure. So when a customer wouldnt listen to my advice, and they would come back with one we knew how to handle it quickly and efficiently and how to argue with the manufacturer in order to get a resolution quickly. If this was a common fault in that kind of oven, I would imagine the currys crowd would know about it and wouldnt cause a fuss in trying to sort the situation. They shouldn't throw the damage card at you straight away though. There should be give and take

WheatenBriar

Aye,I can safely say the currys advisor in this case knew more about the 5 year care plan which wasn't bought than the cooker oh but did sell us an install and deliver package but when they came out,said it was Dublin only...so couldn't do it
Got the money back on that one

ssmith6287

Haha come to think of it, I remember going to an Apple training event where pretty much all the major retailers send a member of staff to get trained direct. When it came to roleplay and advising on which apple products to buy, the pc world lad just kept mentioning their insurance plan. Couldn't get it into his head that it was an Apple event and not a Pc World event

WheatenBriar

Well do ya know what,a good and fair result,the technician from hotpoint came and replaced the door free of charge as it seemed obvious to him that the handle coming off caused that glass to shatter

ssmith6287

Excellent. I know we always say the contracts with the retailer, but in my experience both in retail and a consumer, its always quicker to go to the manufacturer direct.